Both models you listed will support multitasking general tasks with no issues at all, like doing all this at once: music app, YouTube, an IDE for coding, dozens and dozens of browser tabs open, mail app, calendar, messages, note taking app like Obsidian, and other things that are not especially CPU or RAM intensive.
You may run up against 8GB being a limitation if you are running virtual machines, doing any kind of machine learning, editing large resolution videos, running multiple docker containers if they are resource hogs, and other things like that.
This latest 14” MacBook Pro has one HUGE difference from the M1 and M2 MBPs, which is that the base model does NOT have a “Pro” CPU. For the first time, the 14” now has a “base level” CPU option.
So the articles and info online that says that 14” models support multiple external displays is only correct for the M1 and M2 revisions as well as the M3 Pro and M3 Max.
So if you want more than one external display, you can’t use an “M3” CPU. You have to get the M3 Pro or M3 Max. I know, it is very confusing.
Compared to the 15” M2 MBA, the 14” M3 MBP will have a 120hz screen compared to 60hz and it can get brighter too, like 1000 nits compared to the MBA 500 nits. When the MBP uses HDR, it can get up to 1600 nits.
Also, the 14” MBP won’t always be at 120hz - it dynamically adjusts to save battery power.
Either laptop is going to be extremely performant for 4 years with all the basic tasks I mentioned up front.
Go with the 16GB RAM 15” M2 MBA. I don’t think you will be disappointed. If you get a couple years in and decide you want more power, the resale value on MacBooks is great. Can easily offload on FB Marketplace.
If you have a Microcenter near you, consider the 14” M1 Pro MBP w/ 16GB RAM 1TB for $1349. Hell of a deal and YES that laptop will still be great in 4 years.