After reading the article, the evidence shows the influence of music taste as a teenager. Based on what I read, the music we listen to as teenagers (aged 13 for females and 14 for males) determines our taste in music as adults. In my own life, I have seen evidence of this in my parents. The music they listened to as teenagers still influences what the listen to now as adults. My dad is now 50 and still listens to the same Octane and popular music he did as a teen. My mom will sing along to the 1980s classics radio station in the car, remembering every word and recounting memories about the songs from her life in high school, as she graduated in 1986.
Based on my background in neuroscience after being in our class, what the article says continues to seem true. As teenagers, we are most vulnerable to changes in our neurological pathways. Because puberty happens around these ages (13 and 14) for teens, the changes in brain chemistry result in more influential experiences during that time period. Music is a very emotionally charged sensory stimulant that affects our limbic system and prefrontal cortex. For this reason, it makes sense that music in particular during this time has the greatest influences on teens and what music they listen to in their adulthood. Our prefrontal cortexes and limbic systems are in the middle of their development as adolescents, so again, we are most susceptible to changes in our brain chemistry because music is an emotional stimulant and we can develop synapses more quickly. Therefore, our brain pathways for the rest of our lives really are shaped during puberty and adolescence.
I also read the New York Times article that this article was based on. The author, after doing research, stated that, “the patterns were clear. Even though there is a recognized canon of rock music, there are big differences by birth year in how popular a song is.” After the reading the studies done by NYTimes, it was further evidence of the fact that music taste in adulthood is heavily influenced by what we listen to as teenagers. My personal experiences, background knowledge on neuroscience, and research done by the NYTimes gives substantial evidence that what we listen to as teenagers influences what music we enjoy listening to as adults.
Overall great job with the post. You stay focused on the main topic and that is clearly evident with the thesis. The personal point of view, talking about your parents, is a great touch and using it as evidence makes it easier plus relatable for the reader to grasp the content. I like how you use a direct quotation from one of the sources and analyze it. So you definitely do support your points with personal evidence and evidence from the article. I would appreciate maybe one more direct quotation but otherwise it is still very good as you draw from the article. The writing could be a bit more sophisticated and professional. Other than that, I loved it. Your points were very clear and the evidence was helpful.
After reading this article I didn’t think that there was really enough evidence to say that the music one listens to as a teen effects the music that they listen to when they’re all grown up. An article I read from psychology today talked about how our music taste doesn’t have much to do with what we listened to as a child but more about what personality type we are because music is a form of self expressions and emotions so the music one listens to and identifies most with will have more to do with that than on what we listened too when we were hitting the end of puberty. The article also states that the music we listen to and identify with the most at the time has most to do with our individual emotional state, whether we are feeling happy or sad, rap, country, or oldies , and so we can just generically say that the music we listen to as kids effect what we listen to as adults, it’s more about how we grow, our personality, and how were feeling emotionally.
Psychology today article: Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas. “The Psychology of Musical Preferences.” Psychology Today, 14 Jan. 2011, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mr-personality/201101/the-psychology-musical-preferences.
Although the article and Lauren’s analysis bring up very logical points regarding the formation of music taste in adolescence, other evidence I found suggests that there are more factors that affect taste and that taste in music is more fluid than suggested by the New York Times study. The formative adolescent years that both the study and Lauren mention certainly have an effect on an individual’s original music preferences, but a 2017 study entitled “Age trends in musical preference in adulthood” posits that other factors, including social surroundings, affect music taste and that music taste can change drastically with age, suggesting that music taste is not concretely set by our formative adolescent years (Bonneville-Rousseau, Stillwell, 2017). In this study, it was found that age groups tended to prefer different genres; adolescents approved of contemporary music like hip hop or rock while adults preferred genres such as country or classical (Bonneville-Roussy, Stillwell, pg. 8, 2017). The study shows that these preferences were not consistently due to the type of music listened to as a teen, but rather that taste changes as adults age and perhaps are less receptive to “intense” genres like rock. The study also concludes that taste could fluctuate “based on daily social interaction” (Bonneville-Roussy, Stilwell, pg. 8, 2017). So despite the logic behind taste being determined in one’s formative adolescent years, there is also convincing evidence that music taste is not necessarily permanently cemented during this time, and that age and other factors have some effect in changing taste.
Works Cited
Bonneville-Roussy, A., Stillwell, D., Kosinski, M., & Rust, J. (2017). Age trends in musical preferences in adulthood: 1. Conceptualization and empirical investigation. Musicae Scientiae, 21(4), 369-389. doi:10.1177/1029864917691571
Hi Grace,
I liked the new evidence you brought in to tie to Lauren’s post. Your comments made me think about how, in my observation, older adults seem to develop a preference for jazz or classical. I’ve often wondered about my lack of interest in these genres. Maybe I’m an example of a more cemented adolescent preference!
KF