What We Can Learn about Happiness from Heavy Metal

typically

we associate happiness with success we

assume that becoming successful

will in turn make us happier i conducted

a poll amongst my peers in which i asked

them

whether they thought that becoming more

successful would make them happier

78 of them answered yes

this idea that happiness can be derived

from success is often imposed on us from

a young

age many of our parents tell us that in

order to be happy we need to be

successful and get good jobs

teachers tell us that in order to be

happy we need to get good grades we

could go to college and get these jobs

we’re constantly hearing that in order

to be happy we need to be successful as

well

listening can often cloud our judgment

of others when people

aren’t successful we make assumptions

about them for example

while we often associate classical

musicians with prodigies

we often associate heavy metal musicians

with high school dropouts

as a matter of fact heavy metal

musicians are often used as examples of

unsuccessfulness

the music is described as screaming and

poor life choices of their such as

dropping out of school and heavy

substance abuse are used as examples of

what not to do if you want to succeed

it has also been proven that there is a

negative correlation between heavy metal

music and success

according to russell goldenberg and dan

kopp only 21 out of 7 000 bands will

ever become moderately successful

while there are some that become famous

and succeed the genre as a whole as

stalson is a more angsty and

unsuccessful one

our judgments regarding heavy metal

music aren’t just limited to the

performers though

as we often judge listeners at the genre

just as much

we assume that they are unsuccessful and

lacking behind compared to the rest of

society

are these assumptions correct though in

part yes sixteen-year-old david merrill

was curious about the effects different

genres of music can have on our brains

he conducted an award-winning study

alongside with old dominion university

in which he assembled three groups of

mice

one was kept as a control group one was

exposed to classical music for seven

hours a day

and one was exposed to heavy metal music

for seven hours a day

he ran each group through the same maze

before starting the experiment to get an

indicator of what their times would

normally be

and over the course of the experiment he

ran each group through the same maze

three times a week over the course of

three weeks at the end

he ran them through the maze one final

time to see how the music had impacted

their brains

the control group’s time improved by

about five minutes

the group exposed to classical music

their time improved by about eight and a

half minutes

meanwhile the group exposed to heavy

metal music their time worsened by about

20 minutes

leaving it three times longer than the

initial 10.

so going off the results of the study

you can see that the heavy metal music

obviously had a detrimental cognitive

impact on the mice

and if we bind to the previous notion

that happiness is determined by success

we can assume that since the classical

medicine

and if we bind to the previous notion

that happiness can be determined by

success

we can assume that the mice exposed to

classical music is their time improved

the most will be the most happy insects

and successful

meanwhile the mice were exposed to heavy

metal music since their time worse than

the most they won’t be the least happy

and successful

to summarize what i’ve said so far many

of us associate happiness with success

we assume that becoming more successful

will in turn make us happier

many of us associate heavy metal music

with unsuccessfulness

and the experiment on the mice has

proven that heavy metal music can have a

detrimental cognitive

impact so isn’t it only logical

that heavy metal music would make you

less happy surprisingly the answer is no

according to scientific american in 2018

finland was the happiest country in the

world

the four countries right behind it and

happiness were norway

denmark iceland and switzerland placing

all five of the happiest countries in

the world in northern europe

interestingly finland the happiest out

of all of them

also has the most heavy metal bands per

capita in the entire world

with 53.2 metal bands for 100 000

residents

this is almost eight times higher than

the us’s 7.2 metal lands for 100 000

residents

i’d like to note that this is not just

an anomaly according to bloomberg city

lab

we found that the number of heavy metal

bans in a given country

is associated with its wealth and

affluence

at the country level number of heavy

metal bands per capita is positively

associated with a country’s economic

output per capita

levels of human creativity and

entrepreneurship share of adult and

college degrees

as well as overall levels of human

development well-being and satisfaction

with life

while it is unclear whether heavy metal

music was the sole cause of all of these

it has been proven to be a source of

happiness

in that same study bloomberg city lab

goes on to say that scandinavia’s

proclivity for heavy metal music has

increased its government’s efforts to

put compulsory music training into

schools

music training has been found to

increase students happiness

according to a specific study conducted

by paul v cisco arola

and thomas erolla regarding how

music training impacted students while

being at school

the result showed that extended music

training enhanced students quality of

life at school

particularly in areas related related to

general satisfaction about the school

as well as a sense of purpose and

achievement for students

this shows that heavy metal music has

contributed somewhat to these countries

exceptionally high levels of happiness

and from these following examples we can

also see

that despite some of the cognitive

consequences of heavy metal music

it has still proven to be a source of

happiness which leads me into my next

claim

that the idea that happiness is

determined by success

is inherently flawed many of the people

whom we proclaim to be most successful

are often child prodigies or geniuses we

recognize the enormous potential both of

these groups have from a young age as

they often stand out from their peers

and their cognitive abilities

however there’s also much research that

points to higher rates of mental illness

in both of these groups

according to scientific america for some

of the most talented

those with iqs in 140-150 range their

gifts can turn out to be a trap

because these children are so insightful

from such a young age able to make sense

of adult ideas

they are constantly aware of the

potential risk of failure

this awareness can immobilize them to

the point of emotional paralysis

a quiet demon parents and teachers must

watch out for

they go on to say that a steady diet of

frustration eats the child’s self-esteem

the result is anxiety which may even

shade into depression

as a defense the child gradually loses

interest in school and begins to isolate

themselves from social interaction

according to maggie ferguson an unhappy

childhood sticks with you

kim yong was a child prodigy from south

korea

now civil engineer in his 50s he feels

robbed of the childhood

he began speaking at six months and had

mastered four languages by the age of

two

he gained his first phd aged 8 and was

then head hunted to work for nasa

i led my life like a machine he said i

woke up

saw the daily assigned equation eights

left i was lonely and had no friends

even albert einstein one of the most

emblematic examples of genius wrote in

1952

it is strangely so universally and yet

feel so lonely

in these past few examples there is a

common thread to their unhappiness as

children

which is their difficulty in

communicating and forming relationships

with

others now in metal bands there are

often only a few members

these members need to know and be able

to work with each other very well

in addition to rehearsing and performing

together they often have to live with

each other for months on end when

touring

while the bands themselves aren’t always

necessarily successful

they do succeed at bringing members and

listeners together

according to psychologist tasha howe 80s

metal heads were significantly happier

and better adjusted than their peers and

current college students

while they found that the heavy metal

listeners were more likely to

live riskier lifestyles and make poor

decisions throughout their lives

the heavy metal listeners also reported

higher levels of youthful happiness and

that they’re less likely to have any

regrets

of anything they had done in their youth

the reason for this greater happiness

and adjustment

is because social support is a crucial

protective factor

for troubled youth musicians and fans of

like felt a kinship in the metal

community in a way to experience

heightened emotions with like-minded

people

that shows how important a sense of

community is to our happiness

live concerts are loved by almost all

people and are a key part of almost

every musical genre

there’s something special about seeing

your favorite band perform your favorite

songs right in front of you

according to us news amongst other

benefits such as stress reduction

live concerts can improve your

well-being through a sense of community

and connection

while you don’t know everyone in the

audience everyone has liking the band in

common

this common interest gives you a feeling

of belonging that cannot be rivaled by

listening to music on your own

so what am i trying to say essentially

i’m not here to say

you need heavy metal music in your life

in order to be happy

what i do want to get out of this is i

think the sentiment that happiness is

determined by success needs to be

forgotten

while we shouldn’t try to avoid success

in order to be happy

we shouldn’t use it as a means to try to

be happier

i think the biggest thing we can learn

about happiness from heavy metal music

is that happiness is not determined by

our achievements rather from a sense of

belonging and closeness with others

thank you

[Applause]