Viral tunes: changes in musical behaviours and interest in coronamusic predict socio-emotional coping during COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

Beyond immediate health risks, the COVID-19 pandemic poses a variety of stressors, which may require expensive or unavailable strategies during a pandemic (e.g., therapy, socialising). Here, we asked whether musical engagement is an effective strategy for socio-emotional coping. During the first lockdown period (April–May 2020), we surveyed changes in music listening and making behaviours of over 5000 people, with representative samples from three continents. More than half of respondents reported engaging with music to cope. People experiencing increased negative emotions used music for solitary emotional regulation, whereas people experiencing increased positive emotions used music as a proxy for social interaction. Light gradient-boosted regressor models were used to identify the most important predictors of an individual’s use of music to cope, the foremost of which was, intriguingly, their interest in “coronamusic.” Overall, our results emphasise the importance of real-time musical responses to societal crises, as well as individually tailored adaptations in musical behaviours to meet socio-emotional needs.

Music to Face the Lockdown: An Analysis of Covid‐19 Music Narratives on Individual and Social Well‐Being

“…Ferreri et al (2021) conducted a study in the USA, Spain, and Italy and argued that people spent more time than usual on activities related to music during the pandemic, pointing out that music selection depended on individual sensibility, emotional regulation strategies, regulation of stress, and cheering themselves up. A study developed in France, Germany, India, Italy, the USA, and the UK demonstrates how important real-time musical responses are when facing societal crises (Fink et al, 2021). Martínez-Castilla et al (2021) argue that musical activity was carried out to support emotional well-being during lockdowns in Spain, where more vulnerable people found greater benefit from musical behaviours.…”

Music as a Cultural Inheritance System: A Contextual-Behavioral Model of Symbolism, Meaning, and the Value of Music

“…In addition, music is often used to educate or communicate ideas, including in educational settings for young children, and also serves as platform anthems for political campaigns. Finally, music is used to cope with adversity, a phenomenon recently observed during the COVID-19 crisis (see Fink et al, 2021) : Fink et al (2021) reported substantial increases in music listening and music playing in a large, global sample of participants, who were surveyed about their experiences during lockdown. The sexual selection hypothesis does not account for the myriad of ways in which music functions in people's everyday lives.…”

“Evacuate the dancefloor”: Exploring and classifying spotify music listening before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in DACH countries

“…Second, a period-and country-specific characterization of how people coped with the pandemic-related stress can only be provided when people are surveyed regarding their music-listening behavior (e.g., Fink et al, 2021;Granot et al, 2021). Combining such insights with our data-driven approach or more advanced approaches (by comparing results of different algorithms with each other) could yield further interesting results about the actual music-listening behavior that is surveyed and the assumed mood-related levels.…”