REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU HEAVY METAL WAS GOOD FOR YOU
by Hazed
Last week I told you that listening to heavy metal music didn’t make you angry after all. Now another survey shows that heavy metal fans are happier than everyone else.
A study of 1980s metalheads has found they were “significantly happier in their youth, and better adjusted currently” than their peers and current college students.
The study is called Three Decades Later: The Life Experiences and Mid-Life Functioning of 1980s Heavy Metal Groupies, Musicians and Fans. It found that despite the risky lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, being a metalhead “served as a protective factor against negative outcomes.”
The researchers looked at 377 adults. 154 of them had been fans of heavy metal, or musicians or groupies during the 80s; 80 of the same age had listened to different music at the time; and 153 were currently students in California.
The metalheads, it transpires, “reported higher levels of youthful happiness” than the other groups and “they were also less likely to have any regrets about things they had done in their youth.”
The scientists suggest that the key to metal fans progressing to a happy adulthood was the sense of community around the metal music scene. “Social support is a crucial protective factor for troubled youth,” the reserachers wrote. “Fans and musicians alike felt a kinship in the metal community, and a way to experience heightened emotions with like-minded people.”
However, one reason why we should be wary of this finding is that the survey featured those who were happy to report on their lives; people who had fallen by the wayside were not so likely to want to take part.
We should also consider that drugs taken during the time questioned about could have led to blurred memories – a kind of pharmaceutical rose-tinted spectacles effect.
Still, it gives the finger to those who campaigned against metal, claiming it was corrosive to moral values and social integration!
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/08/metal-fans-turn-out-to-be-happier-than-everyone-else
