Open your ears to open your mind | Abbie Labus | TEDxYouth@Chatham
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoSSMtcM5SU Video ID: xoSSMtcM5SU ============================================================ [Music] thank you when I was younger I loved listening to music but I really didn't know very much besides Katy Perry and whatever was on the latest Kidz Bop I would listen to the same few songs over and over and over on my pink Hello Kitty CD player I would put on my headphones which were also pink and tune out the garbage that my parents are listening to when Tom Petty got just a little bit too loud I would turn up the volume so that my girl Katie could sing over him I refuse to listen to anything that was either released before the 2000s or wasn't pop music many people believe that their taste in music is rooted in genres there's genres that you like and there's genres that you don't for me I've never really been a huge fan of country music and I'll even admit I found myself looking down on people who are big fans of it however I will without fail sing my heart out anytime before he cheats by Carrie Underwood comes on so this got me thinking maybe we can't judge our taste in music based on genre alone in order to test this one study took a bunch of short clips of various songs from all different genres these songs sounded similar to well-known songs but they were a little bit different in order to avoid overexposure participants in the study were told to rank the songs blindly on a scale of one to ten the results show that people gravitated not towards genres but rather towards factors examples of factors include sophisticated mellow or intense some people also gravitated to different rhythms or chord progressions this shows how someone who excludes a certain genre could be missing out on their next favorite song like with everything Variety in music is key and different genres have been proven to have different benefits for example pop music can increase endurance and performance when exercising Studies have shown that when people listen to pop music while going for a run they're able to actually run further distances than those who aren't listening to music rap music can help people who are struggling with depression now there's a lot of biases that people have about rap music without actually ever having listened to it the truth is that a lot of rap songs contain positive messages of hard work and self-improvement that can help people who are struggling classical music can help with focus and productivity I've tried this and I can tell you that when I really need to Zone in on something listening to classical music in the background can really help similarly the Mellow tempo of jazz music can lower heart rate and blood pressure more effectively than just sitting in silence all of these facts show how someone who limits themselves to the few genres of music they're most comfortable with would be missing out on the amazing benefits that all of the other genres have to offer Spotify and other streaming platforms tend to feed us the same music that we always listen to because they know what we like so in order to use these platforms to our best Advantage we need to actively seek out new music maybe the next time you're really hard at work and you need to focus you find a playlist of classical music or if you're feeling like you need a little extra motivation to get you through the day you ask a friend who loves rap music to make you a playlist maybe the next time you're sweating it out on the treadmill you give today's top hits a try open-mindedness has benefits far beyond exposure to new music people who are open-minded actually see the world differently than those who are more closed-minded open-minded people are more intellectually curious imaginative creative and empathetic open-minded people seek see possibility in the mundane and therefore perform better on Divergent thinking tasks which tests creativity by asking a question such as how many ways can you think of to use a brick while closed-minded people would say that you could build a house or walls using a brick people who are more open-minded said that you could use a brick as a paperweight a step or even something to replace the leg of a broken sofa open-mindedness forces us to stretch our brains and think more creatively becoming more open-minded may seem daunting it can feel difficult to find a place to start but once you start naturally it will come more naturally for me this meant actually listening to my parents music rather than just tuning it out simply because it was old this led me to the discovery that there's a whole world of Music out there that I never even knew existed and I mean if my parents write about classic rock imagine everything else that they were right about but I just assumed that they were wrong because they're my parents now that we listen to the same music we have more in common and more to talk about and we've even been to a few concerts together the journey towards open-mindedness can look a little bit different for everyone and for some people it might not even have anything to do with music maybe you hate reading but you finally decide to pick up that book that a friend lent you that's been sitting on your shelf maybe you decide to try that show that everyone's watching even though you didn't think it was going to be your thing maybe you strike up a conversation with somebody you've never spoken to before in any case a good first step is to stop looking at things through such a judgmental lens well that would probably be the second step the first step in reality would be to realize how judgmental we are and how many biases we hold without even realizing it it's good practice to try to walk in somebody else's shoes or see through their eyes before making a more impartial decision now I'm not saying that you have to love every song that you hear on the radio or agree with everything that everybody says I'm saying you should try to open your eyes to the possibility that there are things out there in the world for you to discover you just have to put in the work to find them thank you [Music]