Communicating negative short-term consequences makes adolescents turn down the music volume.

Adolescents are at risk for hearing loss, because they often listen to too loud music. New research by Gert-Jan de Bruijn and colleagues found that adolescent become more motivated to turn down the music volume when they read about short-term negative consequences such as “listening to too loud  music will make you ears ring ears tomorrow”.

The ACHC collaborated with Radboud University Nijmegen in this two time-points study of 194 adolescents who attended vocational and secondary education in the Amsterdam area, The Netherlands. At the second time point, adolescents were exposed to one of four persuasive messages that described both the type of consequences (negative consequences of listening to loud music OR positive consequences of lowering volume levels to adequate levels) and the temporal context of those consequences (consequences occurring within a day or a week OR consequences occurring at an older age). The results showed that adolescents who read the short-term negative consequences messages (i.e. if you listen to loud music, you will have a ringing of the ears tomorrow) increased their motivation to lower the volume levels on their digital music players. None of the other three messages was effective. This means that if adolescents need to be motivated to lower their music volume levels, it is best to stress negative consequences that could happen in the near future.

De Bruijn, G. J., Spaans, P., Jansen, B., & Van ‘t Riet, J. (in press). Testing the effects of a message framing intervention on intentions towards hearing loss prevention in adolescents. Health Education Research. 

Link: click here

Published on 17-03-2016