A recent research study conducted at the ‘University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine’ has revealed interesting findings about the use of substance in music and lyrics and their effects on the adolescents. In this study which has been published in the February issue of the journal”Archieves of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine”, researchers have pointed out that in the year 2005 alone almost 33% of the most popular songs were based on the lyrics that reflected the explicit use of words like drug, alcohol, and tobacco.

Researchers also observed that nearly two third of these references specifically mentioned the substance use associating them with the peer acceptance and instigators of sex.

According to a generalized estimate, the children around the world listen to the music for almost two and half hours every day. Some of the previous studies indicate that an exposure to the substance use through a popular media like music is directly associated with the actual substance use among the adolescents.

Scientists now feel that it is urgently required to develop an understanding with what the children are listening to. Parents must be aware of the kind of exposures the children are facing, “especially when they are associated with potentially risky behaviors being portrayed in a positive light”, according to Dr. Brian Primack.

Researchers made a complete analysis of almost 279 songs that were most popular in 2005 and were listed in the “Billboard magazine”. It was observed that the use of the substance specific terminology and words was on all time record high among these songs.

It is estimated, on the basis of another study findings, that a typical adolescent has an exposure to 84 different types of references of substance-use in the popular songs that are being listened to every day. This would become almost 30,000 such references in a single year.

According to the research findings, the genre of music is widely distributed within this exposure. An average adolescent who is listening to the “pop” would have five such substance-use references and exposure every day. Similarly, listening to the “rap” would make one adolescent exposed to nearly 21 such substance-use references in one day. It was also observed that in almost 77% of the ‘rap songs’, 36% of the ‘country numbers’, 205 of the ‘R&B and hip-hop songs’, 14% of the ‘rock numbers’, and 9% of the ‘pop numbers’ contain one or more references of the substance-use.

The study brings out even more surprising facts. According to the analysis of the songs and lyrics, it was found that almost 23.7% of the songs mentioned “alcohol” and nearly13.6% of the songs had “marijuana” references. Similarly, about 2.9% of all the 279 songs contained “tobacco” references.

Researchers also discovered that almost all the popular music lyrics were closely related with the substance-use and there were frequent indications about the partying, peer acceptance, and sex in them.

The lyrics contained messages that the substance-use has a positive impact on a person in many ways. Surprisingly, almost 68% of such popular songs mentioned about the positive outcomes instead of the negative ones. On the other side, nearly 18% of the songs however, portrayed a negative consequence rather than the positive consequence.

Ironically, there were just four songs out of the whole 279 bunch that gave out the clear-cut ‘anti-use message’. Sadly enough, there was not even a single piece of music that portrayed substance refusal.

Scientists are working further on the behavioral aspects of these popular songs and music that would affect the young generation in future also.

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