How Does Rock Music Affect Youth

Sweet Child O’Mine: How Rock Music Shapes the Identity of American Youth
The question I will be researching is “How Rock Music Shapes the identity of American youth.” This question stems from curiosity and personal interest in music psychology. I chose this topic because music plays a large part in my everyday life and I am interested in researching the social impact it has on the identity of the youth. Contrary to what others may say, I believe that this topic is very important. Understanding what influences youth culture plays a large huge part in understanding social norms and improving social relations between generations. Music is everywhere, from the radio to elevators, we are always surrounded. With hundreds of genres, there are many
There are many outside influences that can alter the mainstream identity of the youth culture, but arguably the most powerful is Music. “Studies have reported that adolescents use popular music to deal with loneliness and take control of their status or mood” (Gonzalez de Rivas 1488). These studies show just how powerful music can be. A survey performed in the early 1990’s revealed that American adolescence aged 14 to 16 listen to music on average of 40 hours per week (Gonzalez de Rivas 1488). With such high levels of audible consumption, it becomes easy to understand how large of an impact music has on the youth. There are many genres of music America’s youth listens to, but some of the more influential include rock, heavy metal, and rap. These genres are believed to have more of a powerful effect on children due to their strong sexual and explicit lyrics. Although people believe that these types of music can have negative effects on children, studies have shown that children and young adults are more prone to make non-serious identity changes due to the music they are listening to rather than serious lifestyle changes (Gonzalez de Rivas 1488). These non-serious identity changes include things such as choice of cloths and vocabulary. Although uncommon for other genres, children who listen to rock music are more prone to a serious lifestyle change they cannot control. In the research
The origin of rock music is still under debate. Some believe the roots of Rock and roll stem from southern churches, these are the same churches that rock legends such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Little Richard would have grown up in (Stephens 97). Others believe that Rock and Roll has darker origin. There are countless folk tales about Rock and roll legends who sold their souls to the devil in order to reach superstardom. Stories like these are what began the social controversy surrounding rock and roll and religion. “Rock ‘n’ roll has often been the target of Christian crusades against the evils that allegedly threaten religion in American society” (Chidester 753). Beliefs like this is what had given rock and roll a bad name in the 40’s and 50’s. Religious influences in Rock aren’t always frowned upon, Chidester states “Rock music has sometimes embraced explicitly religious themes, serving as a vehicle for a diversity of religious interests that ranges from Heavy-Metal Satanism to contemporary Christian evangelism” (753). Although a controversial topic not a lot is known about the impact Rock and roll has on religious identity of our youth. As stated before music has a strong power that is destined to impact a person in one way another, but it is far more uncommon for that musical impact to be something as serious as religious