Music doesn't appear to have massive negative effects, the authors say. How youth use music On average, American youth listen to music and watch music videos four to five hours a day, which is more time than they spend with their friends outside of school or watching television. Music alters and intensifies their moods, furnishes much of their slang, dominates their conversations and provides the ambiance at their social gatherings. Music styles define the crowds and cliques they run in. Music personalities provide models for how they act and dress.
Music also appears to alter study habits and damage eardrums.
Such consequences may not spring as quickly to mind as sex and violence, but they may ultimately play just as crucial a role in adolescent development. Many scholars have viewed television as the central media influence on adolescents, Christenson said, but adolescents devote more time and intensity to music. They use music most to control mood and enhance emotional states. But it can also be used to enhance bad moods, which has led some to believe music lyrics about suicide and violence against women have occasionally led troubled youth to commit suicide or violent crimes. Warning labels, MTV Some conventional wisdom takes a whipping in this book, but studies, which have been conducted mostly since the 1980s, also confirm many commonsense notions or casual observations about music and youth.