The Effects of Violent Music on Children and Adolescents

The best music. .. is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with. —Bruce Springsteen Music can change the world. —Ludwig van Beethoven Music is spiritual. The music business is not. —Van Morrison Although much of the debate about the effects of media on youth revolves around television, music is very important to children and adolescents. Try to change the radio station in the car after your child has set it, and you will quickly see that they have very clear and deeply held opinions. In a survey of junior and senior high school students in northern California (Roberts & Henriksen, 1990), students were asked what media they would choose to take with them if they were stranded on a desert island. They were allowed to nominate a first, second, and third choice from a list including: and music recordings and the means to play them. Because radio is almost exclusively a music medium for adolescents, radio and recordings were combined into a single " music " category. As Table 8.1 displays, at all grade levels, music media were preferred over television (which placed second overall), and this preference increased with age. Over 80 percent of the total sample nominated music as one of their first three choices. By eleventh grade, music was selected first by a margin of two to one.