Source background
According to BBC News Health " Pop songs 'derogatory about growing old' "(2016), Pop records set a bad example by portraying ageing and old people in a negative light, focusing on dying and physical decline, according to a study in a nursing journal.Ms Kelly said: "The message coming out of the negative songs is that the elderly are frail and a burden. It's confidence-lowering.
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My Yes/No question is:
Do you know that pop song can cause ageing in elderly?
My answer is:
No, I don't.For me, I like pop music because many of them are really good in both meaning and melodiousness.I think each music has its own way of expressing feeling. Good song and good listener make the song's duty perfect. Instead of listening to a song that depress your heart, you'd better go to a song that fulfill your heart with happiness. In the article, the pop song's lyrics like "I hope I die before I get old" affect the elderly's mind. I think elderly who hear those lyrics must feel depressed. Even elderly with strong mind would feel so. So I think there should be some suggestion on the CD like this song is not suitable for elderly. I'm sure people want to live as long as they can with people they love. Especially elderly, some of them are suffering from many diseases. The spirit is as important as medical treatment. However, there are many advantages of listening to music especially classic song . These song helps them in many ways for example, increase relaxation, better nights of sleep, etc...
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Reference
"I hope I die before I get old" was the line from an old Who song that immediately came to mind when I started reading Ploy's post, so it was no surprise that both Ploy and her source quote that line.
ReplyDeleteDoes it portray ageing in a negative way? Yes.
Is that a problem? I'm not so sure. I think probably not.
The reports of the study in the BBC News reminded me of the fuss about really violent video games with rape, murder, bombs, sexual humiliation and the like: those things really are all there in cames like GTA (confession: I've never actually looked at this or any other violent game, but I assume the reports are accurate, that they really are full of violence and sex).
Some people thought that such games must therefore be banned because they would lead to violent behaviour. This sounds plausible, but like so many things that sound plausible, it is also false. The solid evidence is that even the most violent, sex-filled video games do not cause their players, young or old, to become more violent people.
In the absence of any solid evidence, I suspect that although it is true that pop songs tend to present ageing in a negative way, they are unlikely to be harmful to the old to listen to, and by reminding them of their youth, might inspire and uplift, even if the lyrics are negative: this is my own bit of plausible speculation, and before we think it's true, it also needs solid evidence from observation of what actually happens.
And then there is the other obvious question Ploy's post raises ... but my morning coffee is finished and I need to review and grade the paragraphs you wrote about what the solid evidence in chapters 1 to 3 of Animal Farm tells us about the animals' expectations and how well they might be fulfilled in later chapters.
I'm not elderly yet, but I'm not young either, and I enjoy listening to the music that I loved forty years ago, even if it is sexist, ageist and sometimes worse ("Clementine" takes me back about fifty years, but I don't usually listen to the songs from my kindergarten days.)
No, it's new to me and thank you for the post for me. I had believed that music is good to my brain for relaxing but I knew now it's not always, I must be careful. Not just listening to music, singing songs is good for keeping youth, I've heard this before. Because it gives exercises in our diaphragm well and exercises of diaphragm are taken in Yoga, Pilates, or taichi for their essential practices.
ReplyDeleteMore over it is a basic exercise of all Japanese marshal arts toughening learners' spirits. This might mean; we should not live passively in a locking chair listening to a music even getting old, but live actively moving our diaphragm at any rate and any time.
No, I didn't know before. Although this source is from BBC News, I quite don't believe it.
ReplyDeleteI try to find research to support this data but all researches which I can find are said that music is good for brain and health.
By the way, If this information is true, music school or singer which involve directly with pop song may be in the hard situation.
No, I don't. it is new and surprise me with this discover cause POP music is known as around the world for long time, and I think it is still famous to the future. However, Do an elders should choose to listen only a positive song? if I think about it by depend on a research, My answer may say 'yes'. But in fact, I never heard it before that pop song can cause some bad for elder. Some elders like to listen song like that, so i couldn't force them to stop their favor. Songs cannot hurt you, if you are strong enough. I love pop song.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't. it is new and surprise me with this discover cause POP music is known as around the world for long time, and I think it is still famous to the future. However, Do an elders should choose to listen only a positive song? if I think about it by depend on a research, My answer may say 'yes'. But in fact, I never heard it before that pop song can cause some bad for elder. Some elders like to listen song like that, so i couldn't force them to stop their favor. Songs cannot hurt you, if you are strong enough. I love pop song.
ReplyDeleteEven if pop music were proved harmful to some people, would that be a good enough (a sufficient) reason for those people to stop listening to it?
ReplyDeleteSugar is harmful to children, but that does not stop parents giving them a lot of that very harmful substance, which then causes problems for the children and problems for society. You think the government would be putting ice cream, cake, Coke and Pepsi producers, dealers and users in prison to protect society, especially to protect the innocent children from that harmful substance.
The case of stop eating sugar might be a good example to compare with the case of stopping listening to pop music for some people. Yet, I am not sure that sugar is so harmful that children should avoid eating it. How much sugar can make children have health problem? Is only sugar in snacks or refreshments and the like harmful? How about sugar in general food or fruits?
DeleteNo matter what the answers can be, I don’t think the government has to put producers and dealers and users in prison to protect society.
How do innocent children buy those food and beverage which contain sugar?
The answer is that sometimes they get them from adults or by themselves. For the latter case, parents gave them money to buy them. Right?
Moreover, I think most of products are screened by some warning for reminding that children should consume less. Apart from warning, there are typically nutrition labels on their cover, giving necessary information to consumers.
So, the producers or dealers never force children to buy their products. Also, they often have to specify nutritional information and/or warnings. At the same time, consumers have rights to buy or not buy. As long as this is still true, there is no need for government to do like that.
Finally, I think the case about sugar and the case about pop music are different in various aspects such as target consumer, types of harmful effect, ways to get harm and so on. It seems that they could be compared. But, could they be compared?
This news made me surprised a bit. But, that reason would not be able to stop me listening to pop music. As I see it, I believe the benefits of listening to it outweigh its drawbacks. At least, it helps me feel relaxed and motivated. Ageing can result from many factors. I am not worried about that too much as this is a common process of our body for everyone. If listening to pop music can destroy our nervous system or memory system (proved by research), that would make me worried. Thank you Ploy for sharing new information to us.
ReplyDeleteI also like pop songs even though I know from this news that it might affect the aging and depress me. Since every type of songs including rock, jazz, metal, affects the listeners' state of mind, I believe that if the people know how to differentiate between what is good and what is bad for themselves, they won't be affected that much. Furthermore, from the news, the problem doesn't come from pop music, but it actually comes from the lyrics. If the lyrics say about death or desire for death, the person might want to die. But if the person doesn't want to feel depressed, he/she should listen to that kind of songs.
ReplyDeleteTung reminds me of something about art generally. Sometimes we listen to music or look at great art precisely because it is depressing - Shakespeare's great tragedies are ... tragic. They are not happy. There are no happy endings. Everyone dies tragically in these great tragedies.
DeleteAnd then there is Animal Farm - the first few chapters are happy and things are looking great, even at the end of chapter 5 which you finished today, the general feeling of the animals is still happy and their expectations for the future positive (or do you disagree with me?). But if you think that Orwell's story has a happier ending than the Russian or Chinese or Cambodian or ... did for the peoples of those lands, you are going to be disappointed. I don't want to ruin Orwell's great piece of story telling, but I assume we all have some idea how the Russian revolution worked out. And next week we'll get to apply Hartmann's academic writing skills in chapter 5 to a more interesting question.
Ploy's post reports the ideas in the news article very well. The BBC does not say that pop songs are bad for the aging, nor does the cited research. Ms Kelly, the lead researcher, does make some plausible (to her) speculations, but that's all. The research says that the songs are negative in content - which might mean that they are harmful, but it doesn't say that.
ReplyDeleteThe closest it comes to saying that pop music is actually harmful to old people is Kelly's statement that "It's confidence-lowering." The BBC very sensibly put this in quotation marks and made clear they were Kelly's ideas only. And as Ae points out, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that these negative songs telling the old that they are burdens, frail and all the rest of it.
It seems to me another case where someone, in this case Ms Kelly, has thought: "that sounds plausible, so it must be true." But as we know, this is a very dangerous way to argue, often leading to false beliefs that cause very serious harm to individuals and to society.
I think Ploy's post is winning for the most comments. Well done Ploy for choosing an interesting topic and asking an inspiring question about it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to get my desired number of hours sleep tonight. I hope you're having better luck, or not if you're still enjoying being up at this hour.