Music And Teens Today
...who listen to it while studying, to adults driving to work, and those who listen to music to plainly enjoy life. Personally, I am listening to iTunes on random while writing this. My point is everyday, almost everyone will encounter music weather intentionally or voluntarily it surrounds us.
Music is used in many different ways; one people use it as an outlet of expression, another is a way to let their feelings out, and lastly people use music to identify with who they are. Nowadays, music has a major impact on teen's lives everywhere. Teens begin using music as ways of asserting their individuality and by breaking away from their parents and becoming more independent. Christenson (1994) feels that teen's interest in popular music is showing their departure of their parent's dependence and a new faithfulness in friendships among each other. With teen's new need for music poses the question of how does popular music affect their well-beings. But does music diminish their conscience and cause them to involve themselves on senseless acts of violence and debauchery or is it something for them to relate to.
Looking at children and their development, if pre-teens and children as young as first grade have shown interests in popular music (Christenson et al.). In this research, of first to sixth graders the interest grew as their age did, as they got closer to adolescents their interest grew. Baker (2001) did research on pre-teen girls and their attraction to popular music. She found that even though it seems that young girls are fascinated with the boy bands and normal top 40 songs, some of them are still interested in listening to songs with explicit lyrics. Even in children music poses as a building block in their mental development, as they reach adolescents it begins to form media exposure and identities.
Although most of popular music is considered...
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