US Study: New Albums by Taylor Swift & Co. Cause More Traffic Fatalities
When Taylor Swift, Drake, and others release new music, there are measurably more traffic fatalities in the US. This is the result of a study on music streaming.
(Image: Photographee.eu/Shutterstock.com)
On days when popular musicians like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, or Drake release new albums, the number of traffic fatalities in the US measurably increases. This is suggested by a study from members of Harvard Medical School. The researchers investigated the influence of music as a distraction on an increasing number of fatal traffic accidents. The study was published by the US research organization National Bureau of Economic Research.
"Simply listening to music has been shown to create significant distraction in simulations," write the researchers. They therefore consider further measures by politicians or smartphone and car manufacturers to be necessary to improve road safety.
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For the investigation, the researchers compared the official FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System) register for fatal traffic accidents in the US with data from Spotify charts for the period from 2017 to 2022. The result: on the release days of the ten most popular albums, not only did streaming numbers increase by 43 percent, but fatal traffic accidents also increased by 15.1 percent.
(Image:Â Vishal R. Patel et al./NBER)
To verify the results, the investigation was repeated several times with random data. The researchers also considered the influence of other variables, such as the age of the drivers or the availability of an infotainment screen. Among other things, they found that fatalities increased particularly sharply among men, young people, and solo drivers.
However, the researchers note that the results represent a correlation, not a causation. The releases of new albums do not unequivocally explain the increased number of traffic fatalities on the same day.
Furthermore, the investigation was conducted solely based on Spotify data and actual road traffic fatalities. Accidents without fatalities and data from other streaming providers were not included in the research.
Despite their limitations, the study is a success, the researchers explain: “this study adds real-world evidence about smartphone media-based distraction to a literature that is largely comprised of controlled simulation and survey studies”.
(mho)
