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How Music Can Greatly Benefit Teenagers

Mary A. Santoso

Department of Psychology, Immaculata University

Psychology 101: Foundations in Psychology

Dr. Murraro Irey

April 25, 2022

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How Music Can Greatly Benefit Teenagers

The only force that is able to activate all parts of your brain is one that is more common

than most people think. The sound of music has properties that are unexplainable and has the

ability to heal, educate, encourage, and provide for us as human beings. This is especially

important to those who are still discovering the world and learning their identity like teenagers.

Music can act as a medicine wherever we go and in whatever way we wish if we allow it to take

control. There are a multitude of issues that can be solved or treated through music such as

feelings of anger and sadness, academic performance, and healing internal wounds people

never knew existed. With the additional advantage of accessing music virtually anywhere, it

becomes one of the most popular forms of healing for the majority of the young adolescent

population. With or without intention, music can improve our quality of life in a number of ways

especially in young adults and teenagers.

A common struggle that many young people are facing is academic performance.

Teenagers in school have a multitude of problems that they must deal with, but with the little

time they have on their hands it makes it harder to cope and solve these issues. According to an

article titled “A Popular-Level Analysis of Associations Between School Music Participation and

Academic Achievement”, students who participate in musical activities while in school tend to

perform better academically than those who do not. This is because music training focuses on a

lot of cognitive abilities like memorization, anticipation, and synchronization, and these abilities

can be transferred when doing school work (Guhn et al, 2020). A study has compared students

who participated in musical activities, like jazz band, choir, and concert band, and students who

did not participate in any musical activities. Researchers have compared test scores from both

groups of students to compare their final grades. They took the means of exam grades from

English in 12th grade, English in 10th grade, Math in 10th grade, and Science in 10th grade

from both groups of students. As a result, researchers found that students who were enrolled in
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music classes had a higher exam grade average than students who were not enrolled in music

classes. The articles states,

Students highly engaged in music were, on average, academically over 1 year ahead of

the peers not engaged in school music. In light of this study (the largest of its kind to

date), as well as supporting evidence suggesting music learning in childhood may foster

competencies (e.g., executive functioning) that support academic achievement,

educators may consider the potential positive influence of school music on students’

high school achievement (Guhn, Emerson, & Gouzouasis 2020).

Once researchers have identified the great benefits of participating in any form of music training,

they have advocated for more musical opportunities for students to participate in. Having

classes and ensembles available for students can be more beneficial for the school as a whole

than most people may think.

After seeing how students can perform academically better if they took part in learning

music and participating in it, researchers found an explanation as to why this is true. Not only is

there a cognitive advantage to learning how to play music, but there are motivated-related areas

that are a result of music participation. The process of learning music demands a lot of patience,

long practices, commitment, and, at times, a competitive drive. These characteristics grow and

are refined during music training and can be applied to all areas of the musician’s life, including

school (Guhn et al, 2020). The practice of being more motivated to get work done is lacking in a

lot of students in modern times, especially if many of them do not have a source of motivation.

Young people are too tense and stressed in the world that many do not have an outlet or an

escape to recharge their emotions. Luckily, there is another way for young people to benefit

from music other than intense musical training.

It is no secret that there are some songs that make us jump, dance, or sing along with a

smile. Now that people are able to access music through any device, the chance to listen to

music wherever we go is possible. The easy access to music can really help those who may
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have trouble remaining in a good mood and even motivate them to complete tasks or keep the

momentum of life going. On the brighter side, it has been proven that just listening to music can

have great effects on young adolescents. The article, “Music listening motivation is associated

with global happiness in Canadian late adolescents”, explains how actively listening to music

has the ability to change our emotions to help us feel more happy and boost our motivation in

life. Writers Amélie Morinville, Dave Miranda, and Patrick Gaudreau stated in an article, “music

can play important and normative functions in adolescents’ autonomy development, which may

foster their global happiness,” (Morinville, Miranda, & Gaudreau, 2013). However, listening to

music does not instantly create global happiness. There are certain circumstances and

behaviors that people have that may impact the result of potential global happiness. The articles

explains,

We propose that some of the positive role of music can depend on the level of self-

determination that drives music-listening behaviors, with higher self-determined

motivation being more likely to promote optimal development and well-being. Hence, we

posited that listening to music for self-determined reasons may be positively associated

with global happiness (SWB) during adolescence, given that this period is characterized

by increasing autonomy development.

Adolescents must have the desire and determination to listen to music with purpose in order for

it to have an effect on them in the long run. Having a confident stance in one’s self-government

can help enhance the effects of music listening (Morinville, Miranda & Gaudreau, 2013).

Through this way, listening to music can build one’s emotional state, identity, and agency to

become a well-rounded person.

Young people have many issues with feeling more confident in their abilities and in their

identity. According to popular opinion, this is merely a stage in the life of a teenager, but in

actuality it can be detrimental to these young people if this goes untreated. Morinville and their

colleagues wrote that a number of adults listen to music for purposes that are the following,
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“emotional self-regulation that involves happy mood maintenance, revival, strong sensation,

diversion, discharge, mental work, solace, and so-called psyching up,” (Morinville, Miranda &

Gaudreau, 2013). The power of listening to music can drastically improve the quality of any

teenager’s life because of the various ways and areas music can touch upon. Another article

explains that many of the issues that teenagers encounter are not ones to neglect because they

can have long term effects especially on their well-being as a whole. Vandana Sharma and

Sukhminder Kaur wrote an article titled, “Spiritual wellness among aggressive adolescents:

Efficacy of Raga Bhairavi” and stated, “people who carry the burden of anger often lack inner

peace, and they find it difficult to praise or offer a genuine compliment to others…. people with

low self-esteem protect themselves against feelings of inferiority and shame that develop

negative emotions toward others,” (Sharma & Sukhinder 2017). The impact of having feelings of

low self-esteem, unworthiness, and aggression has the great potential to hurt the people around

them and inflict their negative feelings onto those people.

On the other hand, the study conducted by Sharma and Sukhinder have found that,

“Spiritual people are equipped with the qualities like love, patience, forgiveness, and the ability

to develop harmonious relationships with others. These attributes play an important role in a

wide array of positive health outcomes including morale, happiness, and life satisfaction,”

(Sharma & Sukhinder 2017). Having this in mind, more teenagers should work on becoming

more spiritually aware and connect with their inner self to resolve the negative emotions they

have towards themselves. As a solution to this issue, a study in India asked about thirty young

adolescents to participate in an experiment that includes solving aggressive and rebellious

behavior through listening to music. Researchers gave each participant a set of headphones to

listen to soft classical music for small periods of time throughout the span of two months. The

participants had to take an Aggression Questionnaire and a Spiritual Wellness Inventory before

and after the study took place. The purpose of the questionnaire was to assess where the

participants are in their spiritual journey. The answers before taking part in the experiment
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showed that participants had high scores on the Aggression Questionnaire and low scores on

the Spiritual Wellness Inventory. The goal of this study was to decrease levels of

aggressiveness and while increasing their spiritual wellness. Once the study was complete, the

participants took the same questionnaires and the results were significantly different. Although it

is more difficult to statically measure the difference of spiritual wellness before and after the

experiment, the results from the test post-intervention showed that students gained a better

understanding of their spiritual well-being and felt less emotions of aggression (Sharma &

Sukhinder 2017).

The soft classical music that they listened to made the participants feel more at peace

throughout the day. The article reads, “After the completion of the intervention program, a

feedback session was conducted in which many of the participants (40%) shared that they felt

good about themselves and reported changes, especially, such as less irritation in their daily

interactions,” (Sharma & Sukhinder 2017). Depending on the type of music we listen to and

when, it can drastically change our behavior and our mood throughout the day. While

participants felt more peaceful after the study, there wasn’t much of a significant difference in

aggressive behavior post-intervention. It may require more than a few weeks for this behavior to

change. The result of aggressive and rebellious behavior may not be a result of the stage in

which these young people are experiencing in life, but from a series of events that may have

occurred in their lifetime.

Oftentimes, teenagers will turn to their favorite album or artist when they are in a bad

mood or need to be cheered up. This way of coping with negative feelings and bad experiences

is a very popular and effective method for young people. The act of coping involves the

conscious act of managing stress in order to regulate your emotions and behaviors. When teens

choose to listen to certain songs when they are feeling a particular feeling, they are actively

listening and coping with music. In “A Review of Research on Music and Coping in Adolescents”

Dave Miranda wrote,

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Musical coping in adolescence has been primarily studied in the context of self-initiated

music listening in everyday life. As such, musical coping generally occurs in recreational

settings because music listening in itself is not the object of competition or performance.

However, nowadays, music has become ubiquitous and thereby it is likely that some

adolescents listen to their favorite music during certain competitive and performance

activities, (Miranda 2019).

Because listening to music is in everyday life, it becomes more of an option for many people to

use it as a coping mechanism. It is used as a tool to improve our emotional and behavioral state

wherever we go. Musical coping can help countless teenagers deal with emotional

management, problem-solving, and a variety of issues in regards to academics, interpersonal,

and family relationships.

It is without a doubt that many people of all ages and backgrounds turned to music to

solve many people’s problems. It has been scientifically proven numerous times the great

effects music has, but it still remains a mystery how a unique force can change so much in this

world. No matter the reason, there is never a wrong reason to isolate oneself from the world to

heal and rest through the power of music.

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Research

Guhn, M., Emerson, S. D., & Gouzouasis, P. (2020). A population-level analysis of associations

between school music participation and academic achievement. Journal of Educational

Psychology, 112(2), 308–328. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000376

Miranda, D. (2019). A review of research on music and coping in adolescence.

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 29(1), 1–9.

https://doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000229

Morinville, A., Miranda, D., & Gaudreau, P. (2013). Music listening motivation is associated with

global happiness in Canadian late adolescents. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity,

and the Arts, 7(4), 384–390. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034495

Sharma, V., & Kaur, S. (2017). Spiritual wellness among aggressive adolescents: Efficacy of

Raga Bhairavi. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 27(4), 350–354.

https://doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000200