There are two pieces to my answer.
(1) This is a losing battle for parents because many students truly believe they work best while listening to music & there is little we can tell them to change their minds. Besides, short of policing their study time, how would we make them stop?
(2) Listening to all types of music during every sort of study session is NOT bad for memory. There's some good (and intuitive) research to show that listening to novel, message-heavy music while reading or working hard to understand new material isn't good for retention. But listening to old, easy to tune out, mostly instrumental music while studying kind of boring material could be just the ticket for maintaining focus.
In these circumstances, I work with students to help them think about what kinds of music will help them under what circumstances -- and under what circumstances they'll be doing themselves a favor by creating silence.
Many of my graduate student and academic clients have found that they do their best work in coffee shops and there's even a site (which I reviewed here) dedicated to helping you recreate that perfect coffee shop sound environment.
Now there's a new app called Focus@Will (free trial & then $4/month) that streams music that claims to enhance one's ability to focus on tasks. It's a steep price tag, in my opinion, but I tried a few 60-minute sessions & it did seem to help! It also makes a handy timer for those of you working in short-bursts (a la the Pomodoro Technique). From what I experienced, Focus@Will streams mostly classical music, so it may not appeal to everyone. But it may hit the sweet spot for those who don't like working in total silence, but don't want to take the time to find the "right" sort of music to help them stay at work.
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