--- title: Study: Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games description: Listening to rock music while carrying out surgery may hinder a male surgeon's performance but does not effect a woman's, a study reveals. canonical: https://time.com/4599007/rock-music-operation-board-game/ author: Kate Samuelson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-13T16:50:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T10:31:01.018Z article:section: Science og:title: Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games og:description: At least while playing 'Operation' og:url: https://time.com/4599007/rock-music-operation-board-game/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games twitter:description: At least while playing 'Operation' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why Men Shouldn't Listen to Rock Music While Playing Board Games by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Dec 13, 2016 4:50 PM UTC by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Dec 13, 2016 4:50 PM UTC Men may want to think twice before listening to ACDC, Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith while playing [board games](http://time.com/4385490/board-game-design/), as rock music may distract them and impair their performance, a new [study](https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/205/11/razor-s-edge-australian-rock-music-impairs-men-s-performance-when-pretending-be) suggests. The research, which was led by scientists from Imperial College London and the U.K.’s Royal College of Music, involved 352 members of the public with no formal surgical training removing three “organs” from the board game _Operation_, using fake tweezers. The scientists played the participants either rock music, classical music or the sounds of an operation room through noise-canceling headphones and recorded how successful they were at removing the “organs.” They found that men concentrated the least when listening to rock music and the most when listening to classical music, while women in general took longer to remove the organs but made fewer mistakes and seemed less distracted by the rock music. Participants who liked the music also concentrated better than those who did not. (The study didn’t determine whether the type of music directly caused these changes.) The writers of the study, which was published in the [_Medical Journal of Australia_‘s](https://www.mja.com.au/homepage%5Flaunch?0=ip%5Flogin%5Fno%5Fcache%3D59ff7f35e73e8e64768277bd949e5cd4) Christmas issue, said the data was “concerning” considering the rate of “listening to music in operating theatres, the popularity of rock music in these settings, and that men are reportedly more likely to listen to music than women.” However, the document added that “despite the genuine tension and feelings of responsibility… generated by _Operation_,” the study could not be compared to a real surgical simulation experience. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4599007/rock-music-operation-board-game/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4599007/rock-music-operation-board-game/"},"headline":"Why Men Shouldn't Listen to Rock Music While Playing Board Games","datePublished":"2016-12-13T16:50:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T10:31:01.018Z","description":"Participants were asked to remove three \"organs\" from the board game Operation using a pair of fake surgical tweezers—while listening to music","url":"https://time.com/4599007/rock-music-operation-board-game/","keywords":["Music","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kate Samuelson","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4599007/rock-music-operation-board-game/","name":"Why Men Shouldn't Listen to Rock Music While Playing Board Games"}}]}] ```