For decades, educators praised the presence of music classes in schools because they believed studying and listening to music – specifically classical music – helped improve grades, but during the time when these educators hailed the benefits of what became known as The Mozart Effect, few mentioned another positive aspect of music: its impact on overall wellbeing and teen mental health.
Now we know The Mozart Effect was indeed real, but not quite what the media made it out to be. Rather than improving grades and enhancing cognitive performance across a range of skill areas, the initial research found listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D improved spatial task performance, and the effect lasted for around 10-15 minutes.
That’s what all the hype was about. And this is actually great lesson in checking on claims that sound too good to be true. If the media reported the results of the study, rather than focusing on a sensational, cool-sounding headline and single talking point, we’d have a better understanding of the real impact of music – listening or playing – on teen grades, wellbeing, and mental health.
That’s where a study published in 2023 steps in to help. The paper “Influence of Music on the Hearing and Mental Health of Adolescents” explores the pros and cons of listening to and/or participating in creating music, with a focus on the impact of music mental and social health and wellbeing. Here’s how the study authors describe their work:
“The aim of this article is to review the existing research on the effect of music on the psychological health of adolescents, with a specific emphasis on the benefits and potential hazards of music and strategies for ensuring that adolescents can safely enjoy the psychological benefits of music.”
Let’s take a look at the study now.
Music and the Teen Years
Music plays a significant role in the lives of many teens. Adults know this by thinking back to their teen years. People into music recall their teen years as the period of time when music was almost the most important thing in their lives. For some, it was the most important thing. Music defined peer groups, social interactions, and formed the centerpiece of social activities.
While a significant number of adults know this simply through experience, peer-reviewed research confirms the importance of music in teen life. Previous studies show that teens:
- Have high frequency and deep engagement with music
- Use music to articulate thoughts and ideas
- Use music to express feelings
- Share music – via playlists, etc. – to define identity and manage emotion
- Enhance social connection through music
- May discover and shape their identities and self-concept through music
- Use music to process and reduce anxiety and stress
- Use music to improve mood
- Report improved social skills and self-esteem after taking music classes
Music lovers who read this nod their head and say, “Yes, exactly,” while those not as enamored with music can easily recognize how music works in the lives of others. However, the study authors point out that alongside the benefits of music, dangers exist.
These may include:
- Hearing damage from listening to loud music through headphones
- Distraction from school and other responsibilities
- Exposure to negative content that exacerbates negative/harmful emotion
- Exposure to endorsement of negative behavior, such as violence, discrimination, and risky sex
It’s important to understand that teens internalize music to a greater extent than adults do. And it’s most important for adults to understand that they can help teens avoid the dangers of music by simply listening alongside their teens, breaking down fact from fiction, and discussing the content in a practical, productive, and helpful manner.
What Research Confirms About Music and Teen Mental Health
The research team conducted a careful analysis of the studies we mention above, as well as examining all the available peer-reviewed data on the impact of music on teen mental health. They found robust evidence to assert the following.
The Benefits of Music for Teens
- Music can help teens express emotions.
- Fast, energetic music can convey/communicate happiness/excitement.
- Slow, melancholy music can convey/communicate sadness/low mood
- Music can help teens regulate emotions.
- Creating and/or listening to music helps teens comprehend and clarify their emotions
- Music – playing or hearing – can help reduce stress
- Music – playing or hearing – can help reduce anxiety
- Listening to music can reduce levels of cortisol, the stress hormone
- Active participation – learning an instrument or singing – can improve self-confidence and boost self-esteem.
- Enhances social connections and sense of belonging
- Sharing music with others improves social connection
- Sharing music with others creates a sense of belonging
- Shared taste in music can deepen friendships
- Shared taste in music can help teens form a social identity
- Participating in collaborative music activities like chorus, orchestra, or band can hep teen develop teamwork skills, enhance cooperation, and engender feelings of shared accomplishment
- Fuels creative and intellectual development
- Teens who compose music, play composed music, and/or improvise while playing music can experience a free and open space to express emotions, explore imagination, and convey thoughts.
- Musical training for teens with intellectual disabilities correlates with improved spatial, logical, and mathematical reasoning.
Those are the benefits of music – and they’re significant. That’s why it’s important to encourage kids to develop a relationship with music: it can improve life on many levels. However, we also need to address the potential downside, which we mention above. The downside of music is that it can:
- Damage eardrums
- Monopolize attention
- Encourage non-productive behavior
- Enhance negative emotion
The good news here is that all of those negatives are relatively easy to address. What it takes is the active participation of an informed, interested, and open-minded adult, who may or may not be the parent involved.
How Parents Can Help Teens Benefit From Music
The best way for an adult, ideally the parent, to avoid any dangers associated with listening to music – or joining a garage band (!) – is to listen to the music and talk about it with the teenager. Parents can think about the lyrical content and discuss their views with their teen or teens. If they think the concepts conveyed in some of the more extreme types of popular music are detrimental or inappropriate, they can tell their kids what they think.
There’s a catch, though. Being judgmental or overtly disdainful of music teens love does not foster communication but shuts it down. Therefore, it’s critical to engage in the discussion from an intellectual/conceptual point of view. For instance, if lyrical content is misogynistic, discriminatory, or promotes violence, it’s appropriate for a parent to inquire about that content.
Parents can remind their teens of their personal and family values, if the lyrical content is at odds with those values.
Sometimes all it takes is a simple question, like “Do you think of your [sister, mom, grandma] as a [expletive deleted]?,” or “Is violence the best way to resolve a situation like that?” The idea here is to step in and shortcut the desensitization to harmful concepts, and remind teens that art is not reality and that they live in the real world, not in the abstraction of a work of art, like a song. Plant the seed: teens may not get it at first, but it’s important for parent to step in and, as we say above, separate fact from fiction, and how characters behave in a work of art may not be an ideal template for daily behavior in the real world.
In addition, parents can help expose teens to enriching genres of music, support music education in schools, and encourage participation in any kind of individual or collaborative musical pursuit whenever possible.
The primary thing we want parents to take away from this article is to confirm that music is powerful, can have a profound influence on teen mental health, and that they – the parents – can help ensure this influence is positive, healthy, and productive.
