(no subject)

[cis.livejournal.com]

Article from The Age about the link between what music teens listen to and what behaviour they display:

A study, published in today's Australasian Psychiatry journal, found that teens who listened to pop music were more likely to be struggling with their sexuality, those tuning in to rap or heavy metal could be having unprotected sex and drink-driving, and those who favoured jazz were usually misfits and loners. There seems to be some distinction between 'rap' and 'hip-hop' at work here, though, since "teens who listened to hip-hop were usually less troublesome."

The study's author seems very keen to emphasise that the music isn't causing anything, that it's as it were just another symptom of the teenager's emotional situation. It's odd there's no mention of accepted-peer-group behaviour, which I would think of as fundamentally important (kids who like raving take drugs, you say?). But there's still something I don't like about it. I suspect my reaction's not entirely rational: even though I do believe there's a link, my gorge still rises at the idea of adults (adults! as if they could ever understand) trying to read teenagers' emotions and likely behaviour from their musical tastes. It's not, thank tegoshi, on a 'blaming nu-metal for school shootings' level, but it feels like it's - inadvertently - encouraging the school of of 'aha you like emo you are depressed you are part of my chemical romance's sinister cult and likely to commit suicide any moment.'

ANYWAY. Poptimists: any links made by this study which surprise you? Any links between genre-of-pop-listened-to and general-behaviour that they've missed? Is someone going to pull out that hoary old Hornby quote about the relationship between being sad and listening to pop music? Burning questions, I'm sure you'll agree.

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

On a purely anecdotal note, my teenage social group listened primarily to metal, and "higher levels of suicidal ideation, depression, drug use, self-harm, shoplifting, vandalism, unprotected sex" fits pretty well. It misses out all the positive characteristics, behaviours, etc., but then it wasn't looking for those in the first place.

But wow even reading this gives me the jitters: as a teenager, one of the worst things was being faced with understanding adults who were just-trying-to-help at times when there was nothing to help, trying to diagnose you every bleeding second, and this just feels like more ammunition for them.

p.s. tyler cowen, linking this from marginal revolution, suggests you're better off with yr kid listening to indie rock: tragically i can reveal that at my most teenagely miz i was listening to a heady blend of RADIOHEAD and SONIC YOUTH.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

When I was an angsty seventeen-year-old (ie: five years ago or so) I was once having one of those traditional teenage 'hack yrself to ribbons with a razor' sessions whilst listening to Zane Lowe (I know, I'm sorry) when a song by Bullet For My Valentine came on and I promptly felt so embarassed I had to go and find some tissues and clean myself up.

Some of my friends had a discussion about this article on Facebook a few days ago which I keep meaning to read through but haven't had time yet. I would link to it but that would seem a bit rude somehow.

There is some truth, most likely, to the idea that if a psychiatrist knows a lot about music, they can probably tell stuff about kids' mental state by what they're listening to but this is also true of adults and in any case presupposes that all of these genres are available within a child's social sphere as options, which they're usually not tbh. Asking patients to name a few songs (if any) that they find helpful to them when they feel their mental health issues are becoming problematic for them might well by psychiatrically interesting, if the songs were then taken away and examined or asking them to talk about lyrics they really relate to or why they enjoy the music they like would also be valid, to me but making base assumptions on a patients' mental state based on music they like (unless they've said "'4st7lbs' by the Manics, 'Ana's Song' by Silverchair and 'Fattest Thin' by Humanwine" or something obvious like that) is absolute crap. Particularly since I note there is no genre-section in their study for Stars, which, as any fule kno is the band everyone listens to when most likely to off themselves.

Any genre of music has all kinds of dark under/overtones and no particular scene has more killin' yrself or DRUGZ than any other, as far as I can tell. The indie kids at my uni were the most likely ones to be tripping their faces off, anyway.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

If there's no mention of a process of having the kids articulate their taste -- give reasons for why they like or dislike something and how it makes them feel -- I can't imagine the value in making such generalizations. But that process is basically a one-on-one therapy process anyway, at which point musical taste is just one part of process, and one that shouldn't be taken in isolation. (This relates to my issues with finding "group taste" in the first place, since what you're describing isn't the group's tastes, but common alignments among many individuals' tastes.)

In tomorrow's issue: people who eat food found to suffer from mental illness

[koganbot]

Well, this is a newspaper article about another article in a psychiatry journal, and it excerpts from an interview with the author of that other article; we can't say if the newspaper article represents the latter article well or not, or its author. And the list at the end is prefaced by "What studies" - note the plural - "say about your sounds." The woman who is interviewed talks about more than one study, so it's not remotely clear whether her article in the psychiatric journal reports a particular study itself or is an overview or synthesis of a bunch of different studies. But the psychiatry/health focus is tremendously distorting anyway, since as reported in the newspaper article, it seems to do nothing but link music with problems. Pop fans are conformists, overly responsible, role-conscious, struggling with sexuality or peer acceptance (as opposed to, say, being people who hold mainstream values and get along well with others), whereas metal kids have higher levels of suicidal ideation, depression, drug use, self-harm, shoplifting, vandalism, unprotected sex (as opposed to, say, being people with a sense of curiosity and a thirst for excitement).

Clearly, though, among teens, listening to music at all, any music, is a sign of being fucked up.

[koganbot]

But the most interesting result is this:

JAZZ/RHYTHM & BLUES: Introverted misfits, loners.

I wonder whether Jazz and Rhythm & Blues constitute a single category or two separate categories that each happens to attract misfits and loners. And what is considered "rhythm & blues" in Australia and Southeast Asia? Rihanna? Alan Thicke? Hank Ballard and the Midnighters?