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So, there you are. You’re on YouTube shamelessly watching that new music video with the really hot tattooed man mowing the lawn. Or you’re listening to yet another “new” remix of Avicii’s levels. Maybe your video and music browsing is more reserved, and a nice Beethoven symphony is doing it for you. Or, you are just trying to relax with some binaural beats. Whatever the song, you’re feeling it. Imagine if the government no longer allowed you listen to that song because of what a small group of people and law makers believe it promotes.
You aren't going to see anything this "trippy" when i-dosing (CU Independent Illustration / Rob Denton)
With the introduction of i-doses, or digital drugs, you are now seven letters and a couple of mouse clicks away from getting “high” off of what NBC describes as audio files that promise to “deliver the experience of being drunk or of taking marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy or just about any other drug you can name.” But with this high, U.S. lawmakers and parents complain about the lack of regulation on music that promotes drug use in teenagers.
I-dosing uses binaural beat therapy to induce a high like state on its listeners. Using headphones, binaural beats play sounds into the left and right ears at different frequencies. The result is that the listener then hears the middle of the two frequencies, even though it does not physically exist.
In 1997 a report by Duke University stated, “Taken together, the anecdotal, clinical and preliminary experimental evidence suggests that the presentation of binaural auditory beats may produce controllable changes in EEG and/or subjective state of consciousness.”
Despite this report, binaural beats, though causing slight changes to a person’s consciousness, act primarily as a placebo effect.
“It’s just kind of messing with your perception of the sound,” Dr Fligor says in the article “Teens Turn to Digital Drugs”. “It’s neat and interesting, but it has absolutely no effect on your perception of pleasure or anything else that was claimed.”
Dr. Davival Ibrahim, chief of toxicology at St. Francis Hospital, agrees.
“Saying it will induce specific recreational drug experiences, it’s really a hoax in my opinion,” Ibrahim said. “There is no logical basis to suggest that somehow listening to sound that will simulate a neurochemical change that a drug is predictably doing to kids.”
But these doctors, as well as parents and lawmakers, are not satisfied. As the Governor’s Prevention Partnership in Connecticut have seen a spike in teen usage of i-dosing, there have been increased concerns that digital drugs are a gateway for inciting kids to try real drugs. As a result, pressure has been put on the government to increase regulation on i-dosing as a cause of drug and alcohol use among teens.
Basically, the reason for regulation is that i-dosing creates a base for kids to become drug addicts. Sort of like how Eminem causes teens to exploit women and 2 Pac enforces violence, right? Oh wait, we’re back there again?
Music is a form of freedom of speech, yet for whatever reason – increased drug use, violence, sexual exploitation, alcoholism, you name it – there always seems to be a parental force trying to eradicate it. I can see why, I mean parents’ beloved dinosaur Barney and his famous song “I love you, you love me,” promotes incest, bestiality, and suggests molestation of a minor.
But that’s not the point. The point is that each individual person gets something different out of each song.
Children are most likely not going to understand my assessment of Barney’s song. Rather, they’ll just think it’s about friendship. My favorite songs include Eminem’s “Space Bound” and 2Pac’s “Realist Killaz,” and though admitting this kind of hurts my ego, I am one of those people who have never so much as held a gun. Furthermore, these songs have never driven me to hurt a woman or any person, for that matter.
More importantly, prostitution, drug use, alcoholism, and violence have occurred throughout history — even before the internet, binaural beats, and Eminem. Prostitution can be dated back to before 2400 BC. If that’s not exploitation of women, women did not have a right to vote in America until 1920. LSD was created in 1938. Cocaine was synthesized in 1855. World War II killed between 50 and 70 million people. 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War. What were the sources of these problems? Certainly not music.
Looking under the main causes of teen drug abuse, this is what I found: as many as two-thirds of the people in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused or neglected as children. More importantly, according to Health.com, teen drug abuse is more likely to occur if a parent uses or abuses alcohol or other substances; a parent or teen has depression, anxiety or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); or their family has frequent conflict, physical or sexual abuse, or stress.
So if the perceived causes of increased drug and alcohol use as well as violence and exploitation of women are causing parents to demand an increase of government regulation on music, is it not logical to start suggesting an increase of government regulation on parenting as well? If kids are already in the mindset to get high, create violence, drink alcohol and exploit women, they’re not going to need songs to make it happen. Maybe it’s time parents and lawmakers stop blaming songwriters and singers, or “binaural beats” and start thinking about how to improve the American family life and parenting instead of impeding on the freedom of speech of musicians and the happiness of others.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Abbi Cook at Abbigale.cook@colorado.edu.
