Managing human energy with music? An explorative study of users’ energy-related listening behaviours

Music has been shown to increase activation and could be used to offset resource-demand-discrepancies in knowledge workers, thereby increasing mental well-being and job performance. The present research sought to explore how students use music to manage human energy states to identify use cases for a human energy state management system, which would use musical stimuli to achieve users’ energy goals. An online survey (N = 224) assessed typical practices related to music-based management of human energy states and desired state transitions (i.e. users’ energy goals). In addition, spontaneous suggestions of possible features were examined and key variables to characterize user diversity were assessed. Users sought to avoid low and strived for high (but not maximum) energy levels. Genre was the most used selection characteristic for this function, but users varied in their need for novelty. Assistance systems should work within personal preferences to dynamically adjust energy levels and avoid peaks. Future work should examine benefits of interaction depth for energy management strategies.