Lyrics and Behavior How does it affect adolescents?

Cody Jarel Watson

English IV-5B Mrs. Jones 27 March 2014

Outline Thesis: Lyrics are a form of persuasion that causes adolescents to act out. I. Adolescents growing up and finding out who they are.

A. Some may think that other issues are influencing adolescents behaviors. B. Adolescents needing as much love form birth from parents to have warmth. C. Masud says television affects adolescent because of imitation. II. The song lyrics display a more negative effect on adolescents. A. Psychologist randomly assigns youth to participate in a survey. B. Boyz In The Hood is an example of a movie displaying negative music while doing negative acts. C. Professors study the aggressive and nonaggressive behavior displayed while listening to music. III. The risk of music being able to be downloaded. A. Many adolescents have IPods and can download music there. B. Martino does a telephone interview a high school student. C. Fulbright says peer pressure is also caused by music lyrics. D. Social Interactions are being effected and parents need to chip in. IV. Degrading a mans way of living is being heard in music lyrics. A. Homosexual men are being attacked by music lyrics often. V. Music is an everyday activity for many individuals. a. Affirmation is being affected by music lyrics in adolescents

b. Music lyrics display sex, depression and drug use. VI. Scientific studies show that Prosocial Behavior is being affected. B. Music lyrics that are shown on television show positive behavior C. Adolescents will show altruistic behavior from some of the shows studied. D. Jackson studied children listening to different music to see how they would interact

Watson, Cody Jarel Mrs. Jones English IV-5B 16 March 2014

Billy Joel once said that Id rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun. These words express evidence on why many adolescents began to accept wild behaviors. Lyrics are a form of persuasion that causes adolescents to act out. Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological human development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood. Throughout those years many are influenced by surroundings. Rather its positivity or negativity it shapes the way they see each other. One of the biggest problems much adolescence has is the type of music they listen too. Its not really the music but its the lyrical content that is a speculation. Some may think that there are many more issues other than music lyrics that can affect many people today. It is the television that can cause us as people to act out of terms. The homes we grow up in and how we are taught from our parents. Domestic violence and drugs are also the biggest factors facing us today. Music lyrics are just a form of style and entertainment; it shouldnt affect that many people in a negative way. We all know what is wrong and what is right, why would we listen to what a song has to say? According to Kadijah H. Masud, television affects childrens behavior because children imitate what is around them. University of Maine says: violence in the media is a growing concern.

Children see things shown on television and they think its good to be this way. Statistics in a University of Maine report indicate that The typical American child will be exposed to 12,000 violent acts on television a year. (Masud). But if television is affecting them, what is keeping them influenced by this behavior? When born as an infant we all have some emotional connection with other human beings. As the children grow other factors began to influence how they interact and think. Music is one of the main reasons why children grow up to be different individuals. Parents who express warmth and love to their children are less likely to experience problems. The parents who dont so, children get influenced by many different things. One big issue we are having that is influencing many children around America is music lyrics. (Masud) Are song lyrics an effect of violent behavior? Psychologist randomly assigned youths to watch either a short violent or a short nonviolent music video and then observed how they interacted with other people after viewing the music video (Tropeano). After they watch the 15 minute video, physical and verbal aggression was measured on a 10 point scale: 1 showing less violent behavior and 10 showing the most. A correlational analysis was used to see the relationship between watching the violent video and acting violent or watching the nonviolent video and not being violent. The results of the study showed that exposure to music lyrics are used among adolescents. Any type of television or movie, music is being heard when any behavior is being used. For example, just like in Boyz in the Hood, when anything is being shown there is a song being heard to display what is going on. When adolescents here these styles of music they want to

display play the behavior and the music will encourage them to continue the behavior. The movie plays a very small role but the music continues the behavior and is passed down easier to other people. Professors from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human Services found that aggressive music lyrics increase aggressive thoughts and feelings. In a series of 500 college students, they examined seven violent songs by seven artist and eight nonviolent songs by seven artists. The students were given a psychological task, while listening to the songs. One of the tests was to classify words that were both aggressive and nonaggressive. The control factors of the experiment were that the songs were sung by the same artist and same musical style in three other experiments. In the other two experiments the professors studied the arousal properties of the songs to make sure the negative effects of the lyrics were not due to arousal. The differences related to hostility were assessed and controlled. They found that it can cause long term effects and aggressive behavior that causes listeners perceptions of society that develops aggressive personality. Once children began to enter adulthood their perception begins to become influenced by what they understand and how they will understand the world (Palmer). Many teenagers who use IPods who have sexual and violent music started to have sex early, study shows. It doesnt matter the genre, most popular music contained sexual activities. The music described men as sexual driven stubs and woman as the sex object. According to study, lyrics cause sexual behavior to happen quicker than those whose relationships were committed

(Martino). Among the students who listened to the sexual music, most of them began to have sex within two years versus the 29 percent who listened to non-sexual degrading music. Steven Martino, an author from Pittsburgh, VA, said that We think that really lowers kids inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful (Martino) about sexual decisions and may influence them to make decisions they regret. A study, based on telephone interviews with 1,461 teenagers aged 12 to 17, appeared in the August issue of Pediatrics. One of the participants, a 17 year old girl from New Brunswick, NJ said she and other teens sometimes listen to sexually explicit songs because they like the beat The Recording Industry Association of America, declined to comment on the girls opinion. A union of hip-hop musicians and recording industry executives said explicit music lyrics are cultural expressions that reflect social and economic realities. Yvonne K. Fulbright, a New York City sex researcher and author, said peer pressure, selfesteem and home environment are probably more influential than the research thinks. She says that you have to look at all the things going on in a teenagers life. When someone has a healthy life they do not take these lyrics to seriously. Parents need to think more critically when it comes to music lyrics while raising their children. If parents can teach their kids ways of respecting themselves than this would be less of a problem. (Fulbright) Another concern that is articulated about music lyrics is that it impacts their social interaction. Studies have shown that many children spend less time having conversations when listening to music. Parents that speak to their children about different behaviors are less likely to be

influenced by the content in music lyrics. Listening to lots of music is not very effect on music behavior but listening to altruistic type of music can teach great social skills. One of the biggest insults in music is degrading a mans manhood because who wants to give his love to another man. Homophobia in music has been affecting the homosexual community for many years. Jelani Cobbs says Its calling your manhood into question its calling your sexuality into question its saying that if you are not this you must therefore be gay, you must be a gay, you must be a faggot, you know, you must be a b**** n**** (Cobbs). Most hip-hop artist agreed with this statement and it causes controversy. On the film, Hip-Hop: Beats and Beyond, Byron Hurt interviewed three homosexual men and they said that the violent bashing behavior made towards them is pleasant and it makes them more attracted to the male artist. Even though homosexual behavior is not accepted into Hip-Hop, many homosexual men enjoy the music. (Hurt) One route you can take to keep make sure you are staying on the right path is through affirmation, or subliminal messages. Psychologist have studied that our subconscious when our conscious isnt. Lyrics can affect the way we talk if we listen to the wrong types of music. For example: instead of saying I hate movies you can say Id really want to rest in peacefully and not have to worry about anything. Affirmation is the first step in being In our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things. Why not have something positive and stamp it with blackness (Jamie Foxx). Music is used every day and is influenced by everyone, in the morning, evening and night. The music impact on behavior is bond and complex. Music in general tends to reduce or delay fatigue (Diserens 260). Music has change

since the rock and roll era. Any musical novelty is full of hazard to the whole state, and needs to be prohibited" (Ballard 47). This quotes states how much of an influenced music has on many individuals and it needs to not be put out into the world. Heavy metal music lyrics show isolation, agitation and loneliness. The music lyrics show sex, drug-use, and depression. What drives the listeners to the music is the loud heavy bass. Rap music displays the same traits but has a more catcher beat and easier to understand. What is so disruptive about these genres of music is the content that is being shown. The United States senate, Committee on government affairs stated that over the last thirty years, violent juvenile crime has jumped by more than five hundred percent. (Liljequist) Prosocial behavior is any voluntary behavior intended to benefit another person. Altruism is most displayed topic in prosocial behavior. This means showing empathy, helping others, sharing and helping people that are different from whom they are. Many adolescents are being exposed to loads of violence and sexual content in music lyrics. One study selected a widerange of music from television shows and the radio and showed that only less than 25% of music lyrics today displayed prosocial behavior. Altruism was the most common in music lyrics from Disney Channel, PBS and Nickelodeon than on any other television station or the radio. For example, music from shows like Sesame Street (PBS), Thats So Raven (Disney Channel), A.N.T. Farm (Disney Channel) and Dora the Explorer (Nickelodeon) are prosocial shows wellliked by children. (Davis) Children are more likely to show altruism from the musical lyrics in television shows in three of the four shows. But ultimately, only very few of children will show altruistic behavior. This is

because the violent and sexual music lyrics heard shows a greater impact on the youth. Children are influenced by mostly what they hear and how other kids act. Prosocial morals are difficult for children to encounter. Other things besides music seem to be harder to understand so they began to follow up with others children may be doing and from what they hear in music. Parents often are unaware of the lyrics to which their children are listening because of the increasing use of downloaded music and headphones (Fuld). Some research discovered that music has an impact on school work, social interactions, mood and affects. Popular music has an effect on the paramount concern. Female adolescents use music to help them in their emotional state but male listeners use music as a stimulant. Male listeners need it for a boost. A survey performed in the 1990s, 2760 American adolescents and it revealed that most listened to music 40 hours per week. Another study performed in 2005 accessed media use of 8- to 18year-olds in the United States, a doctor reported that on a given day, 85% of these listen to music. On average, American adolescents listen to music 1.5 to 2.5 hours a day. (Fuld). A number of theories have been studied to explain the relationship between music and behavior. Most people listen to music that they are connected too. Lyrics have become more explicit in reference to drug, sex and violence over many years. Ten CDs were performed by the National Institute on Media in 1999 and it showed that out of every CD 1 of the songshad sexual behavior. Another study selected children from ten different households and played the radio for an hour. After the study was complete the children were watched to see how they would interact

with each other. He saw some of the children get up and acting out of rage, while the others were playing calm. Than the observer turned on the television and put on two different shows. After the study was complete the observer notice that eight out of ten of the children watched the most violent show while the other two watched the altruistic show. This study has showed that most children are influenced by what they hear from music lyrics. (Jackson) The evidence is overbearing and trying to change the behavior is a struggle. Adolescents, we need to come together and talk about our problems because most of our problems are becoming actions. Lyrics are a form of style many artists choose to use; we do not have to act this way because it is not the right way. The right way would be to except each other and live a great life with positive music and positive people. No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead, that's the only way to keep the roads clear- Greg Kincaid.

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