Music, adolescents and health : narratives about how young people use music as a health resource in daily life

Abstract

In this text, I focused on the extent to which young people’s use of music can be a healthpromoting resource. Based on an interpretative understanding of health as a category of experience, I found music in turn to impact the subjective interpretation of our relation to the world, to other people and to our existential being. I presented, through three adolescents’ narratives concerning their music use in their daily lives, examples of the ways in which music can be used to regulate, master and influence emotions (as an individual resource) and to inform the construction of identity and socialisation (as a social resource). Finally, I discussed the fact that adolescents find music to be a necessary element in their lives and, potentially, an existential resource in this regard. The adolescents’ narratives about their daily use of music, it became apparent, involve more than the music in itself. They involve music, in various situations, as a deliberate strategy for coping with a host of challenges. Thanks to music’s multifaceted individual, social, and existential application, I concluded that music — as used by adolescents, at least — ought to be viewed as a resource in their experience and cultivation of health. Technological developments continue to make access to music increasingly straightforward, and musical activity will impact young people’s lives for the foreseeable future. In this sense, we have only scratched the surface of this topic, whichdemands further exploration along the lines presented here.