How many of us use music to block out the surrounding world? What if the simple action of listening to music could potentially be dangerous, or have the opposite effect and could possible make you a genius? Would it affect your decision of plugging in those earphones?
The average teenager listens to about 2.5 hours of music a day or 18 hours a week. Within those 2.5 hours a day you are exposed to on average 84 explicit substances. What is the message we are receiving from the music we are exposed to?
Most students of WHBHS agree to the use of music as a blocking mechanism, especially when it comes to schoolwork. “Depending on how long the assignment is,” sophomore Collette Delisle explains, “I will listen to music.” Sophomore Sabrina Spillari says, “I prefer to listen to music (while doing classwork), it definitely helps me concentrate and get my work done.”
Three out of the five people I talked to have a tendency to listen to rap above all other genres. “personally, I listen to rap above most other genres of music,” say sophomore Jackie Pendleton. According to the article “Music’s Impact on Society” with every hour of rap music 77% of the lyrics are references to alcohol or drugs. There is only about 4% of music that actually depicts an anti- drug and alcohol theme.
Recent studies that have been presented have pointed the to the reason as why, due to the easier access to music. Music exposer is much more frequent, compared to 10 years ago. A commonly used program for downloading music, iTunes, has made new “repairs” to their website making music easier to download and faster. This easier access to music has made us more immune, or desensitized, to the amounts of music we are consuming, therefore we are listening to more music without our realization.
The music that we listen to does have an influence our lives. Be selective to what you choose to plug into your ears.