Children are taught at a young age by their parents that alcohol can be corruptive and only consumed when you are of the legal age. According to the New York Times, “Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine studied the 279 most popular songs in 2005, contained a reference to drugs or alcohol. The number jumped to 14 percent for rock songs, 20 percent for R&B and hip-hop songs, 36 percent for country songs, and 77 percent for rap songs.” Teens spend significant amounts of time listening to music, with the average teen listening to somewhere between 1.5 to 2.5 hours of music a day. The proliferation of iPods and cell phones means the music is highly portable and many listen to music while doing other things like homework and chores. I believe that the glorification of it in music may be a factor in increasing consumption, because when teenagers are at parties or environments with alcohol, the music might add to the pressure to drink, especially among underage kids.
Overall, 22 percent of songs with alcohol mentions referred to beer or malt liquor, 34 percent to wine or champagne, 36 percent to hard liquor or mixed drinks, and 31 percent to generic terms such as “booze.” A common theme was getting intoxicated or high, although drinking was also associated with wealth and luxury, sexual activity, and crime or violence. Consequences of drinking were mentioned in only 9 percent of the songs with alcohol references, and anti-use messages occurred in only 3 percent (Bonnie para 13). Teenagers, in my opinion, use music as part of their identity formation. According to John Hopkins Children Hospital research, “Children look at their peers or “super peers”, which are movies, television, the Internet, and normalize or incorporate what they see in movies, music, and television into their real lives. If an attractive character on TV drinks or smokes, they are at risk of drinking and smoking, too, even if logic tells them.” Kids who enjoy similar genres of music tend to cluster and share their enjoyment. Music influences adolescents more than at any other period of their lives. Teenagers are going through a phase where they are searching and developing role models. Exposure to such frequent positive portrayals of alcohol use in the absence of negative consequences may increase the likelihood of alcohol use.
Rappers, hip-hop artists and pop musicians have taken to belting out their over-drinking adventures and name-dropping brands like Hennessy and Grey Goose. I believe when teenagers hear alcohol in songs that they listen to it brings their awareness of brands, which makes them want to experience what they are hearing about. According the website “Be the Parents”, Busta Rhymes and P. Diddy's hit "Pass the Courvoisier". Sales jumped up by 18.9% after the song was released in 2002.” LMFAO’s song Shots featuring Lil Jon, has lyrics such as “When I walk in the club all eyes on me. I’m with the party rock crew all drinks are free. We like ciroc. We love patrone. We came to party rock. Everybody it’s on shots, shots, shots, shots, shots. The ladies love us.” According to the website Billboard, the song shots reached the charts in seventy-five in Australia, fifty-
three in Canada, forty seven in South Korea, sixty eight US Billboard Hot 100, and two on Us Billboard Heatseekers Song. LMFAO’s song Shots, glamorizes drinking which seems inescapable for teens who are underage. According to a new study by researchers at Boston University and John Hopkins, more than seventy percent of underage students reported that they
fatal crashes involving alcohol does not correlate with the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) and a majority of young adults are going around the law and consuming alcohol anyways. Robert B. Voas, A. Scott Tippetts, and James C. Fell are researchers at Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation who have wrote Accident Analysis and Prevention; which supports the drinking age limit by focusing on the decline of fatal crashes and the amount of high school seniors giving up alcohol. Michelle Minton is…
are current drinkers. How often do legal age adults go to dinner, to a bar, or over a friend’s house where they consume enough alcohol to put them over the legal limit? How many of those people attempt to drive home? Alcohol, hormones, and daily medications, could lead to a lethal night of legal drinking, driving, and generally enjoying company of those around you. Alcohol is a legal substance in the United States, yet it is responsible for the death of an unprecedented number or people. Americans…
Soc 10 Spring 2013 Second Graded Essay For your second graded paper you will need to carefully view the video: Edge of America. This video was shown on April 9th with the director, Chris Eyre. The video is also available on reserve in the multimedia library in Sills Hall. For the paper, please think about how the issues raised by the main characters in the movie (Kenny Williams, Annie Shortie, and the young women on the basketball team) compare to or contrast with the story of Mary Crow Dog and…
Unit 2 EA2 – Persuasive Essay “Why Marijuana Should Be Legal” A Gallup poll released on Tuesday reveals that for the first time in history, Americans are more in favor of legalizing it than criminalizing it. 2013 has markedly been a successful year for marijuana legalization, with Colorado and Washington both passing laws to decriminalize the drug. Majority of Americans agree that marijuana should be legalized. It gives a great reason why the congress should legalize marijuana. Here are reasons why marijuana should…
century with websites such as Google, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to name a few. Since this large boom in social media usage in the past 10 years, many issues have arose with it as well. One of these issues was addressed and discussed in the essay, “Why Asking for a Job Applicant’s Facebook Password is Fair Game” by Alfred Edmond Jr. Edmond’s main argument is that, from the perspective of the business owner, it is appropriate for the employer to ask a job applicant for their Facebook password…
Marijuana Position Paper Steven Smigielski July 23, 2013 Substance Abuse T/R 1:15-2:50 Marijuana Position Paper Introduction In this essay I will show both sides of the issue on the legalization of marijuana. I will also express my own opinions on the subject. Marijuana, or cannabis, is commonly described as a recreational drug. It’s been considered as an illegal narcotic for the past sixty to seventy years. Our government considers it to be harmful to the nation. They believe it causes…
that it can be harmful. But alcohol is the largest cause of drug-related deaths among Australian teenagers. “AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, said urgent action was needed to end the binge drinking culture and change young Australians' attitudes towards alcohol.”[Youth Binge Drinking Culture Must End.(25 February 2008)] Government have give a alcopops tax to batter for binge drinking. I’ll show how the tax work for ending binge drinking in the following essay. Body Since the early…
quicker. However, in this case of the Iroquois and European trade of the early colonies, trade, proved not to be beneficial, but fatal to these Indian tribes. Worchester presents this argument in his paper, “The Spread of Firearms among the Indians on the Anglo-French Frontiers". In Worchester’s essay, he describes the trade interaction, specifically of firearms, between the Iroquois and Europeans. He specifically argues that the trade of firearms was the main reason why Indian culture was so devastated…
Kristi Bayless Janiece Luper English 102 4/16/14 Gun Control on College Campuses Pens, pencils, textbooks, and laptops are among the many items you will find in a college students’ backpack. With school shootings currently on the rise, many people concerned about the safety of students, think that it should be legal to carry guns on campus. While there are some who are in favor of this idea, others believe strongly in tighter gun control. I believe there should be gun control on college campuses…
unload everything I’ve learned about writer’s block and why people suffer from it but I see so clearly now that that was a mistake. I was naïve, and I am finding it ironic that I’m suffering from the same thing I’m trying to write about. In Mike Roses’ essay Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block he concludes that inexperienced writers suffer from writers block because they are “operating either with writing rules or with planning strategies…