How Music Influences Teens
How does music influence teens in love, drugs, and drinking?
Alex Brown
12/11/12
Sociology, 6th
Society today is different than it was decades ago. Whether good or bad, it is evident. Culture is more centralized around media more now than it has ever been. It'd be hard to go a couple hours without being exposed to media and impossible to go a whole day. How exactly does media influence us? Does the constant exposure make us susceptible to the messages artists and designers are trying to portray? Getting more specific how does music affect teen life? Music is something that is important and valued by many teens a crossed the world. It is possible the lyrics of these scandalous, rebellious, and/or M-rated pop artists are sinking into the cerebellum of curious teenagers. Teenagers are the targeted audience for many artists. My question is, how does the explicit music we listen to affect our behaviors when it comes to sexual activity, drugs, and alcohol. Digging deeper into one of media's most effective conveyor of message, there is research that puts some backbone into the argument. American adolescents are exposed to 2.4 hours of music per day and their weekly listening easily exceeds 16 hours (Primack, Douglas et al., 2009). Today’s artist paint pictures of teenager’s sexual fantasies, making it seem risk free and fun. Music portrays threesomes and girl on girl action to appeal to the young imagination of teenagers. With constant exposure to this sexual ‘dreamworld’ teens are propelled to try and experiment what is being repetitiously ran through their ears. In a recent study scientists grouped teens according to their sexual media diet or (SMD) which was weighted on their frequency of media usage. The individual’s SMD combined the overall amount of sexual content being displayed with the specific type of sexual content. This was then tracked over a one month time to give the subjects media diet. White adolescents (12-14 years old) in the top quintile
Alex Brown
12/11/12
Sociology, 6th
Society today is different than it was decades ago. Whether good or bad, it is evident. Culture is more centralized around media more now than it has ever been. It'd be hard to go a couple hours without being exposed to media and impossible to go a whole day. How exactly does media influence us? Does the constant exposure make us susceptible to the messages artists and designers are trying to portray? Getting more specific how does music affect teen life? Music is something that is important and valued by many teens a crossed the world. It is possible the lyrics of these scandalous, rebellious, and/or M-rated pop artists are sinking into the cerebellum of curious teenagers. Teenagers are the targeted audience for many artists. My question is, how does the explicit music we listen to affect our behaviors when it comes to sexual activity, drugs, and alcohol. Digging deeper into one of media's most effective conveyor of message, there is research that puts some backbone into the argument. American adolescents are exposed to 2.4 hours of music per day and their weekly listening easily exceeds 16 hours (Primack, Douglas et al., 2009). Today’s artist paint pictures of teenager’s sexual fantasies, making it seem risk free and fun. Music portrays threesomes and girl on girl action to appeal to the young imagination of teenagers. With constant exposure to this sexual ‘dreamworld’ teens are propelled to try and experiment what is being repetitiously ran through their ears. In a recent study scientists grouped teens according to their sexual media diet or (SMD) which was weighted on their frequency of media usage. The individual’s SMD combined the overall amount of sexual content being displayed with the specific type of sexual content. This was then tracked over a one month time to give the subjects media diet. White adolescents (12-14 years old) in the top quintile