REAL LIFE NEWS: DISLODGE THAT EARWORM
by Hazed
Earworms are those tunes that get stuck in your head and keep on playing over and over. Not even whole songs, just odd lines that replay until you think you’re going to go mad.
Scientists have previously studied what kind of songs are likely to end up as earworms. Now they are coming to our rescue with some strategies to get the earworms out of our brains.
A survey of 18,000 people in England and Finland resulted in three methods being reported that should work to dislodge those pesky tunes.
Method 1: Listen to the complete song. More than half of the Finnish respondents said they use this strategy, and that listening to the song to the end works. Sounds plausible: if the song comes to its natural resolution then it should become unstuck from the brain.
Method 2: Use another song to drown out the earworm song. Most of the people who used this method said that the replacement tune did not become an earworm itself so clearly this is the recommended method.
Method 3: Just try not to let it bother you. Well that may be a strategy for coping, but it doesn’t exactly make the earworm go away!
About 90% of people report that they get infected by earworms from time to time. If it happens to you, then try methods 1 or 2 and maybe they will help.
