Drugs and Alcohol and Your Kids' Music
Wonder what your teenager is listening to on those little white earbuds? How about 84 references to explicit substance abuse a day? Most of which, by the way, are associated with partying and sex.
About one third of the most popular songs of 2005 refer to substance abuse, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. They took on the task of counting because they were well aware of data showing that cigarette-smoking characters in movies tend to increase smoking among teenagers. This new study, published in the February Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, didn't look for cause and effect. But it does give a sobering portrayal of just what's pouring into kids' ears.
There's a huge variation depending on the type of music. Pop songs almost never mentioned substance abuse, for example, while rap songs led the pack with 104.5 references per hour of song. The biggies for rap musicians were marijuana and other drugs, including cocaine. (It's hard to find a rap lyric that can be quoted on a family website, but the rappers 50 Cent and Ludacris were big that year.)
By contrast, the 33.7 references per hour in country songs focused almost exclusively on alcohol ("life looks good, good, good/Billy's got his beer goggles on"). R&B and hip-hop songs included 14 references per hour. And rock-and-rollers may have been eight miles high in the 1960s, but the Foo Fighters and Green Day, the top rockers in 2005, must have been swilling decaf: The most popular rock songs contained just 6.8 substance abuse references each hour. Even more surprising is that most of the rock references talked about negative physical consequences, like becoming an alcoholic.
Given that the average teenager listens to 2.4 hours of music a day and thus hears about 30,732 substance abuse references in music in the course of a year, should parents be ripping off the headphones and banning the Nano? No way, says Brian Primack, the pediatrician at Pitt who led the study. "At this point, since we really don't know what kind of impact there is on behavior, we don't need to have any really dramatic response." Censor music at home, he notes, and kids will inevitably find it elsewhere. Primack studies media literacy — that is, whether knowing how to analyze the underlying motivations behind advertisements and popular media help people make more informed (and, one would hope, more healthful) choices. Better, Primack says, to teach your kids to analyze and evaluate the messages that they do hear and to realize they don't necessarily reflect the truth. "Really, they're there to sell records, not to reflect reality."
Here's a link to the Billboard 2005 charts, if you want to go that way: billboard.com/bbcom/yearend/2005/charts/index.jsp
Tags: alcohol | drugs | parenting | music
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the lyrics dont matter
im 18 and i listen to a pretty mixed selection of music. Indie, Rap, Dance and Pop. Yes, rap references more drugs sex and abuse but it makes no difference to your views on it. Its pretty much down to the culture that we live in. i dont feel like theres pressure to do drugs, i do it because i want to experiment and make my night better.
For example listen to "i love college" by Asher Roth. this goes on about college life and all the partying, drinking sex and drugs and it does make it sound good, BUT its glorified. I live in scotland and my nights are wilder, harder and more often, since i was 13. So the song is playing down the bad stuff compared to real life.
This is the same for alcohol, sex and violence.
I think that drugs in films has more of an effect. In weed based films, (Harold and Kumar, How High etc.) ive felt the urge to smoke weed becasue they make it look so good. Its probably because its visual.
thats why i dont think the lyrial content matters.
the problem of societies advocation of ignorance and bias instead of proper mature understanding
part of life is growing up and learning for yourself. kids should learn for themselves the wrongs and rights. they should understand and learn they must make their won decisions and no just expect someone to tell them. telling them they can't listen to certain music is just really stupid i believe. we shouldn't hide kids from the truth. drugs exist. drugs play a massive role in humanity and always have. they've existed for as long as humans have and before. some people do drugs, some people don't. but it's not so black and white. there is of course, many factors such as peer pressure, up bringing, certain mental deficits which may leave certain people more predisposed to substance abuse, a lot of the time attributed to levels of neurotransmitters and the such.
most music usually contains drug references, because like i said drugs play a major role. from recreational use, to medical, to habitual. their here to stay. and people are going to use them. and people who have creative outputs such as music and have taken drugs will most likely talk about them. some to make drugs look good, some purely to show their troubles with drugs.
i thinks its wrong for parents to try and hide and shield their kids from things they don't want them to see. obviously a parent must play a role in protection and guiding a child to lead a good life, but drug use isn't always tantamount to a bad life. it's just that most people have a problem controlling their use. i truly believe it's people who have a problem and it's not the drug. the second it gets into a persons hand it's fait is decided from their. some people can use drugs their whole life and keep a balance and not loose control and others just don't have this control.
we shouldn't hide these facts from those who aren't mature enough to understand. this causes bias and ignorance. bias to your wants instead of encouraging your child to make decisions and think for themselves and understand. see this isn't just about drugs but can be seen in all parts of life. we shouldn't have our kids growing up just blinding abiding to what you or someone says. you can program a computer to do what you want. we should raise children to think about their actions and to be mature in decision making and be opinionated.
and the "mental scope" as described below applies to both sides. from drug use to anti drugs use. you can find ignorance on both sides one side glorifying drugs to a degree as if they don't have bad effects and the others smearing them making them look as id they are evil and so is the user. stupid comments like one time and your hooked increases this blur between the truth. instead of proper education.
and i think this comment "parents seriously if you raised your kid right they wouldn't be doing drugs." is completely wrong. a parents is only there to guide and the kid will decide for themselves. when you take a kids right to decide for themselves and be individual you really give them the wrong message.
avalanch effect
Rap artists and others ARE to blame, but the nature of the problem is one of avalanche effect, and so naturally those with limited mental scope will want to see things as either one way or the opposite, depending on which position most satisfies their vanity.
Human civilization which is somewhat synonymous with human dignity is a distancing of itself from the banality of the chimp. All species forming or shaping - the making of pedigrees - is subject to regression to the mean if the shaping or forming force diminishes or vanishes. The first moral diminishment in the modern West was the first act the began the snowball effect, and it's easy to see how song lyrics have become gradually more raunchy since 1968, and human behavior in the West has become so also.
It is not a sign of clear thinking to blame one or the other, rather, the blame lies with a gradual decline in the interest in nobility and dignity, and Western leadership from the universities, and political and media classes has been lacking with regards efforts to maintain the pedigree.
Also, some blames lies on the huge food surpluses we enjoy in the West and the over consumption of fats, sugars and refined carbs. This diet weakens the will.
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