Young women and men and their perspectives on music and risk

Sammanfattning: Adolescents in Western society often expose themselves to high levels of sound at gyms, rock concerts, discotheques etc. These behaviours are as threatening to young peoples’ health as more traditional risk behaviours. Testing boundaries and risk-taking are fundamental aspects of young people’s lives and the processes of developing their identities. There is, however, a need to balance reasonable risk-taking and risks that can damage health. The aim of study 1 was to analyse the relationship between self-exposure to noise, risk behaviours and risk judgements among 310 Swedish adolescents aged 15-20 (167 men/143 women). Adolescents’ behaviour in different traditional risk situations correlated with behaviour in noisy environments and judgements about traditional risks correlated with judgement regarding noise exposure. Another finding was that young women judge risk situations as generally more dangerous than young men, although they behave in the same way as the men. We suggest that this difference is a social- and culture based phenomenon which underlines the importance of adopting a gender perspective in the analysis of risk factors. Adolescents reporting permanent tinnitus judged loud music as more risky than adolescents with no symptoms and they did not listen to loud music as often as those with occasional tinnitus. The aims of study 2 were to illuminate the complexity of risk behaviour, the meaning and purpose of adolescent risk-taking in both a traditional sense (e.g. smoking and drug use) and in noisy environments (e.g. discotheques and rock concerts), in relationship to norms and gender roles in contemporary society. In total, 16 adolescents (8 men/8 women, aged 16-19) were interview wed individually and in focus groups. The interviewees’ responses revealed the social reproduction of gender and class. A main theme of the phenomena for both genders emerged: Social identity and Existential identity of risk taking. The descriptive sub themes, however, which together comprised the main themes, were rather diverse for men and women. The incorporation of social and existential theories on gender as basic factors in the analysis of attitudes towards risk-taking behaviours is considered to be of utmost importance. Likewise, research on hearing prevention for young people needs to acknowledge and make use of theories on risk behaviour and similarly, the theories on risk behaviour should acknowledge noise as a risk factor.