[Student Voices] Apt., Boombayah, and the Beauty of Silence
Published: 15 Dec. 2025, 09:27
Yeonju Kim, Eonju Middle School
by Yeonju Kim, Eonju Middle School
One night after 10 p.m., I was working on some math problems. But I couldn’t concentrate, as Rosé’s “Apt.” kept playing in my head. Apateu, Apateu, Apateu, Apateu... Uh—uh-huh, uh-huh. My pencil tapped along to the rhythm without me noticing, and soon I lost track of the logic in the problem. The numbers blurred as the beat took over.
After that night, I started paying attention to how music affected my studying. I noticed that whenever I listened to pop songs while doing homework, my brain seemed to split in two directions. One part tried to follow the melody and lyrics. The other tried to stay focused on the math problems. When I worked on geometry, I would draw careful lines on the paper, tracing angles and trying to find the slope of a parabola. Then, suddenly, I would stop, my hand frozen in midair, as the music burst into the chorus, interrupting my thoughts and scattering my attention like a stack of homework papers caught in the wind.
Music might seem helpful when studying, but for me, it often makes things harder. I used to listen to K-pop while writing in English or memorizing world history facts. But I soon realized that time slipped away too fast. When I listened to a fast song like “Boombayah” by Blackpink, the explosive lyrics filled my imagination. The chant of Boom-bayah echoed in my head like a spark about to ignite. I imagined a bomb exploding in a burst of pink light while people danced wildly around it. My pulse quickened, and my pencil bounced on the desk. I often told myself, “Just one more song,” but suddenly an hour had passed.
When I switched to a slow song, like a cello performance, the change was dramatic. The low tones of the strings wrapped around me like velvet. My right leg began to shiver softly under the desk. My head slowly drooped toward my paper. The sound filled my mind with the color brown, the color of polished wood, cello bodies, and the dim light inside old opera houses. It was calming… but so calm that my eyes started to close.
Many studies show that music, especially songs with lyrics, can reduce learning performance because it forces the brain to multitask. Researchers at the University of Porto found that people who listened to background music with lyrics did worse on reading and memory tests than those who studied in silence. This happened because their brains had to divide attention between the song’s words and the text they were reading. Similarly, a 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychology showed that students who listened to pop music while studying understood less than students who worked in quiet environments. Neuroscientists at Shanghai Normal University found that background music increases the brain’s cognitive load, which means the brain has to work harder to process information. This extra effort can interrupt deep thinking and make it harder to understand new ideas.
The next time I’m doing homework and Rosé’s “Apt.” comes on the radio—Apateu, Apateu, Apateu—I’ll turn it off. I used to think music helped me concentrate, but I’ve realized it only pulls me away from my work. When I really need to think deeply and study seriously, silence is the best background of all.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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