Impact of Music on Youth

The Impact of Music on Youth

Music? Or bad influence?

As a musician, I express myself through music: when I'm angry I listen to really loud music, when I'm happy I whistle happy tune while walking around the campus, when I'm heartbroken I unconsciously sing to the lyrics of Pusong Bato. From that we see how music affects our everyday lives; but then I wonder, up to what extent? Could music be a primary factor influencing the behavior of people, especially the youth? Music plays an important role in the socialization of youth and listening to popular music is considered by society to be a part of growing up. There are some – mostly the parents and media – that blame incidents on the lyrics of the songs. Although everyone is directly affected, there are some that do not and will not admit to music, usually profane music, having a personal influence. I believe that lyrics have an influence in people and what they do.

Youth's choice in music and how they react to it vary on different factors. Some use music as a way to express themselves emotionally and some use it as a stimulant to 'boost' their energy or to create a positive image of themselves. Country, pop, heavy metal, and rap are some of the popular music genres that we listen to but each of these have issues toward the society. For example, rap music seemed to have a bad rep since it became popular back in the 1980's. Other genres such as Rock and Roll and Jazz music have similar issues. Jazz was said to promote drug use while Rock and Roll, as popularized by Elvis and other stars, was called a bad influence and said to be promoting sexual promiscuity and as well as drug use.

As we can see in our society today, drug use is widespread among teens as well as suicide, violence and sex. All of these point back to provocative song lyrics and profane music videos. Although some will not admit to having a personal influence yet their subconcious mind starts to affect their outward behavior thus resulting to...