Teenagers Of Teenagers

As a kid I always liked music. I got my first iPod when I was eleven years old. My first song was “Chop Suey!” by System of a Down, still one of my favorite songs to listen to in almost any situation ranging from trying to concentrate to just a chill-down song. My love for music has evolved over the years, being exposed to different genres of music such as rap/hip-hop and pop and I enjoy both. The only genre of music I don’t like and fully despise is country. I hate country music. But my favorite genre of all is rock. All good rock songs have similar qualities.

Many teens in every generation seek to separate themselves from their parents. One way of creating that separation is by embracing different music. For the first time, teens had large amounts of disposable income that could be spent on entertainment designed specifically for them. Also, the new mass media meant that teens across the country could hear the same music broadcast or watch the same television shows. This brought a rise of an independent youth culture that was separate from adult culture. The new youth culture became an independent market for the entertainment and advertising

The impact music had on teenagers was significant. Teenager’s developed a new style of music called Rock ‘n’ Roll, because the lyrics reflected and embraced their lives. High school sweethearts, fast-cars, and rebellion against authority resembled what teenagers craved the most. Parents disliked the message and influence behind the lyrics of Rock ‘n’ Roll, because they believed it caused juvenile delinquency. Parents hated the sexuality of the songs, the performers,

As a child, I was exposed to rock music and oldies. However, I grew up in Prince George's county, so I started listening to rap, just like every other kid. But by the time I entered high school, I began to like rock music again. I became an avid rock listener. Once again, my music taste has changed. Now I only like to listen to trance and house

The rise and popularity of rock and roll music reflected the divide between teens and adults during the 1950’s and the 1960’s because the lyrics caused the teens to rebel. The word Teenager was created in the 1950’s due to the tremendous population of those in this age category and because teenagers started gaining more independence and freedoms. Teenagers were able to buy more things like food, clothes and music because of an increase in spending money. Teenagers were also becoming more independent in the type of music they preferred to listen to, no more listening to what their parents liked, teens flocked to the new music of the decade, which was rock and roll. Growing up as a teenager prior to World War II, teenagers were

According to researchers Christenson and Roberts, “American adolescents spend…between four and five hours a day listening to music…[which is] at least as much time as they spend watching standard television fare and more than they spend with their friends outside of school” (8). Music media influences the lives of adolescents in a number of ways. It “…alters and intensifies their moods, furnishes much of their slang [and] provides models for how they act…” (Christenson and Roberts 8). Music plays an important role in the lives of adolescents. They spend as much time, if not more, listening to music as they spend watching television, and therefore, music deserves additional scholarly attention.

She talks about how although music has always romanticized “illicit drug use and alcohol abuse . . .” , today’s music touches on a more emotional level that connects with most kids of today (Eberstadt 186). In the article Eberstadt then says that, “What distinguishes them most clearly is the fixation on having been abandoned personally by the adults supposedly in charge, with consequences ranging from bitter-ness to rage bad, sick, and violent behavior”, a trait the draws attention away from the simpler reason of why a teenager would like a certain type of music and focuses more on the emotional state of the person. Eberstadt talks about a painful truth, “the emotional downward mobility”, where she touches on how parents raise their kids nowadays (Eberstadt 186). It’s a more emotional approach on why teenagers lash out.

Chapter five of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition explains the two basic procedures in which synaptic connections are added to the brain. One method is synapse overproduction and loss. This method incorporates information from experience at an early age. A second method is synapse addition. This method adds synapses together throughout the entire lifespan, and adds on to create connections between information learned early in one’s life to form complete memories and ideas (nap.edu). Similarly, Donald J. Ford explains in an article titled How the Brain Learns, that through synapses, sensory information gets conveyed through a network of neurons for storing in short-term memory. Then, Ford writes that the information is carried to long-term memory where the information is compared to existing memories to compare and contrast the newly observed information

To most teens it is like a drug, we just get so attached to it. Music is part of our lives and without it we would most likely be lost. It calms us down, gets you pumped for games, makes us cry and most of all it influences us. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, she writes “not the best because you not trying” (24). This quote shows not everyone has the same vibe with music.

“He taped a series of public service announcements ("I'm here to say your dreams can come true if you stay in school!")” (Article 1). Teenagers listen to music takes them to their happy place and is a great way to get rid of stress. Music can get almost anyone through happy and sad times. Music also inspires most people. Teenagers use music to show who they are.

Music has more of an influence on the people in the twenty-first century than it ever has before. Teens, especially, are surrounded by some sort of it in everything they are around or do. Many disagree on how music impacts one’s mental state and behavior; however, all agree that the impact depends on how the listener feels before and how they allow it to influence them.

The Smashing Pumpkins was one of the most influential bands in the 90’s their timbre often fell under alternative rock. Musical preferences are formed at an early age, unknowingly the people in your environment help develop how partial you are to any genre. Growing up my mother, and older sister listened too very diverse, and progressive music. So majority of that exposure helped me at an early age identify what kind of “tone colors” I preferred making it easier to pick the type of music I liked. Alternative rock, Synth, Goth Rock, Metal, Pop just about anything with a beat is ok with me, but Alternative Rock, and Synth Pop are a theme to most of my playlists. Certain bands take you home, you go to that place in your mind, where its going to be ok, on a rough day that’s all you can do to get by. The first cassette tape I ever received from my mom was a Smashing Pumpkins tape of their 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. This cassette got me through most of my young adult life up until now, your taught many coping mechanisms throughout life, I like to think that music is the most natural one.

In one of the articles found, a study was conducted to see if there is a specific genre of music that is preferred amongst adults. Twenty-five different music types were played for the subjects and they were to choose the ones they liked the most. What was interesting was that not one type was the most popular. All different genres had people who thought they were the best, all types got recognition from someone (Schäfer et al. 2009). This being said, it’s weird for people to assume all babies like the same form of music when adults clearly do not. People know at some point humans develop a music preference, but who is to say we aren’t just born with it and it is always there we just aren’t exposed to it until a later age? Doing a similar study to see babies’ different reactions to 25 genres of music

Many young people seek to use music to help themselves be more accepted in the world, so that they can be easily categorisable in the mainstream. Many girls of ages 9 – 13 may have an interest in a popular ‘boy band' of the time. This is an example of how, though a girl's identity could be partly influenced by such a band, ultimately, their music and appeal is limited in scope because after four or five years the band is likely to have split up. The media promotes such a band because it targets girls who are seeking to find an identity and because these years

affect their lives as they choose to live it, non quite as strong of a force