What are 'earworms'?

I read an article recently about earworms and thought “there’s a term that isn’t in my dictionary” and probably shouldn’t currently be in the dictionary. So what then are earworms?

What are 'earworms'?... Read More

Earworms are those tunes that get stuck in your head. I remember one friend at university said he did terrible in an exam because just before the exam started he got a tune in his head and couldn’t get rid of it. Sometimes earworms can be pleasant and sometimes they can be annoying. The problem is that reading about earworms starts you thinking about those tunes that keep playing over and over in your head. Try to shake them and it can be hard.

The good thing is the research shows ways of getting rid of earworms. In effect you need to do something mentally challenging with the example given being anagrams. I’m not good at anagrams so that one is out for me.

It is good that people research things like earworms but I do worry that if they figure out exactly what makes a good earworm and can perfect creating earworms, marketing people will use the knowledge gained to create earworms that we can’t escape from. As always knowledge can be used for good and sometimes, not so good.

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge
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