‘Music Fix’: A Musical Cure to University Students’ Mental Health During the Covid-19

Pandemic

As the pandemic hits, people have tried a variety of approaches to cope with their daily

struggles, such as how to complete their tasks, school activities, and the like within the confines

of their homes. Their primary concern is how to be as productive as possible. People developed

their own types of "quick fix" as a result of these scenarios; they have associated items that they

label as their daily source of energy and productivity. One of the most popular is the "coffee fix,"

in which the first sip of a cup of coffee indicates that it can fix everything, and thus drives them

to be productive all day. On the other hand, others have also claimed that music has the power to

heal everything. Schäfer et al., (2020), for instance, noted in their study that music has been

shown to improve mood and reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation. During the Covid-19

pandemic, the role of music is evident in the large increase of music playlists in online music

platforms such as Spotify (Ris, V. (2021), and the like, where each playlist is labeled such as

"Quarantine Study Playlist," "Work From Home (WFH) Playlist," "Late Night Chill Playlist,"

and more, as seen online. People who use this type of fix believe that playing music from their

playlist gives them the instant energy boost they need to get through the day. While the idea of

coffee, music, and others as energy boosters is not new, these types of fixes were more useful

and popular during the pandemic. People have even referred to them as "survival kits," as they

are unsure how they will survive the harsh restrictions and day-to-day struggles brought on by

the Covid-19 pandemic without them. As noted by Pedersen and Vilmar (2021), in the year

2020, people’s perception of space has shifted dramatically as a result of the COVID19

pandemic, which has rendered cities and workplaces desolate. Many domestic spaces were

transformed into workspaces overnight, and many people listened to altered soundscapes of
silent cities or altered their own listening habits at home. The crisis and lockdowns created new

private and public spaces, as well as new ways of acting in familiar spaces.

Students are among those most affected by the pandemic. There were many doubts about

the effectiveness of online schooling; some claim that they cannot absorb their lessons as quickly

as they can in on-site settings, and some students chose to stop schooling in the interim. This

new learning methodology has forced students to be productive at home on their own if they

want to stay in school. For many factors to be considered, this was not an easy feat for each

student. It has emphasized and widened existing educational disparities, resulting in students

with varying levels of academic efficacy. As a result, as the pandemic shut down the world, the

majority of students stopped dreaming — they had lost hope, and this had wreaked havoc on

their mental health and well-being. As a result, COVID-19 has had an impact on their

psychological well-being. While acknowledging the complexities of defining the term wellbeing

(Ryff, 1989), the construct is understood as a combination of feeling good and functioning

effectively in one's individual and social life (Deci and Ryan, 2008; Huppert, 2009). And Music

has been widely used in psychological and therapeutic interventions to improve physical and

mental health (Peters, 1987; Bunt and Pavlicevic, 2001). Furthermore, for many years (Van de

Wall, 1924) music has been used as a tool to increase psychological wellbeing in people

experiencing situations of isolation or confinement (Edri and Bensimon, 2019; Hjrnevik and

Waage, 2019; Gold et al., 2020). Similarly, music has been linked to psychological well-being,

reduced anxiety, lower levels of depression, or coping among people with health conditions, and

increased subjective well-being in general, from listening to music to any active participation in

music making, individually or in groups (Daykin et al., 2018).

 Fortunately, some students are resourceful and recognize how to use the technology at

their fingertips. While studying, some students use video calls to communicate with their

classmates, while others watch television or listen to music. These techniques assist students in

feeling less alone and, as a result, recalling the "old feelings" of being with others prior to the

pandemic's onset. The pandemic introduced new stressors and potentially amplified existing

stressors, necessitating students' selection and use of a variety of coping strategies. (Groarke and

Hogan, 2019; Dingle et al., 2020). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide a description and

discussion of how university students cope and deal with their mental health during the Covid-19

pandemic. However, it will only be limited in terms of the role and impact of music listening on

them. The Uses and Gratifications Theory, coined by Katz and Blumler in the early 1940s, will

be used to gain a better understanding of the subject.

The Uses and Gratification Approach was first proposed by Elihu Katz, who proposed

that people use the media to their advantage. The viewpoint arose in the early 1970s when Katz

and his two colleagues, Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch, expanded on the concept. The

Theory of Uses and Gratifications is concerned with understanding why people use certain types

of media, what needs they have for them, and what gratifications they derive from using them.

The theory was first proposed in the 1940s as a way to explain why people chose to consume the

various forms of media available at the time. Currently, the theory is based on two assumptions

about the media. It implies that audiences are active participants in media because they select the

content they want to consume. The second assumption is that media users or consumers are more

aware of the factors that influence their decision to use or consume a specific medium. The

increased control and choice provided by new media has opened up new areas of uses and

gratifications study, leading to the discovery of new gratifications, particularly in the case of
social media. Thus, this paper contends that music listening is an effective coping strategy for

university students during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to improve their well-being and

mental health. University students are active users of media and are well aware of how to use it;

as a result, they consume media with a purpose and do so of their own volition, as they have

control over their own gadgets. The factors that influence their choice to listen to music, which

university students are more aware of, have an impact on said purpose.

University students were surveyed in a study by Hurwitz and Krumhansl (2021), and they

identified one song that seemed most associated with the pandemic, their "signature song," and

explained why this song seemed relevant. The themes were discovered to be underpinned by

three clusters: (1) emotional responses, (2) memory associations, and (3) discovery of new

music. The patterns discovered could be the result of a combination of factors, including changes

in living situation, working from home, a lack of social opportunities, and a decrease in mental

wellbeing. On the other hand, Ris (2021) discovered that Spotify's concentration playlists and

noise-cancelling headphones operate on the modulation principle and represent modes of

environmental technologies in his study. Thus, listening spaces can provide a method for

analyzing power structures and subjectivation.

As a result of these findings, it is possible to conclude that the factors influencing

university students' decision to listen to music vary. This undermines the main criticism of the

Uses and Gratifications Theory, being that the assumption that people know their needs and

gratifications is unreliable because it is practically impossible for people to know all of their

needs and gratifications because some of them emerge unexpectedly while using media

platforms. Recent research on music listening during the pandemic has found that people have

turned to music to provide a sense of togetherness (Fink et al., 2021; Granot et al., 2021) and to
reduce pandemic isolation-induced loneliness (Martn et al., 2021). It is worth recalling the

findings of Krause et al. (2020), who discovered that other forms of media, such as television,

videos, and movies, do not have the same beneficial effects on pandemic life satisfaction as

music. According to Vidas et al.,(2021), despite the fact that domestic and international students

experienced different levels of stress as a result of COVID-19, music listening remained an

effective coping strategy for both cohorts, regardless of the type of music they used. This shows

that music is one of the most effective strategies for coping with psychological distress and

improving well-being (Mas-Herrero et al., 2020; Granot et al., 2021). According to Wang

(2013), coping style is the process of cognitive and behavioral attempts made by persons under

stress to mitigate its negative impacts. It is psychologically healthy to establish good cognition

and appraisal of events, as well as to adopt a constructive coping style in the face of pressure.

Wang describes coping style from a developmental standpoint, and believes that coping style is

one aspect of stress response. When an individual is confronted with stressful events or

surroundings, he or she makes deliberate efforts to control emotion, cognition, and behavior.

Ferreri et al.,(2021) found a positive correlation between music listening for affect

regulation and current well-being, particularly among Indian participants. While people with

more severe depression and anxiety used music in different ways, the end result was a positive

change in affect. Their findings highlight the universality of music's affective potency and its

ability to help people cope with a previously unheard-of life stressor. In summary, their findings

showed that, during the pandemic, people reported an increase in the frequency with which they

engaged in certain music-related activities. Listening to new and happy music was particularly

associated with healthier emotion regulation strategies among all activities. Interestingly, while

musical training only had a minor impact on individuals' changes in musical production
activities, and that different aspects of musical reward and general emotional regulation

strategies broadly modulated engagement in music-related activities during the pandemic in

different directions.

According to the findings, respondents perceived an increase in the amount of time they spent on

musical activities such as listening, singing, dancing, or playing an instrument during lockdown.

Participants also reported using music to cope with the lockdown, claiming that it helped them

relax, escape, raise their mood, or keep company. During the lockdown, their perception of the

value of music in personal and social well-being improved, according to the findings. However,

the study reveals significant differences in music use and perceptions based on respondents'

personal circumstances. Age and feelings of vulnerability may result in more conservative

musical practice and more moderate perceptions of music's positive values. This emphasizes the

other criticism leveled at Used and Gratification theory, namely that it only considers users and

ignores the media; as a result, subjectivity may apply in this way.

This can be explained, however, by citing Morales-Vives et al. (2020), who discovered

differences in the psychological consequences of lockdown based on variables such as gender,

age, and marital status, as well as personality traits such as subjective happiness, life satisfaction,

or higher extraversion. In turn, Rodrguez-Rey et al. (2020) stated that music transcends the

aesthetic dimension and is an integral part of people's identities, as well as the communicative,

cultural, leisure, and psychological aspects of their lives (Fritz and Avsec, 2007; Hormigos-Ruiz,

2010). Similarly, beyond the research experiences of the intentional uses of music for therapeutic

purposes, the natural choice to make music in order to lift mood is often an inherent human trait

(Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham, 2007; Storr, 2015). According to North et al. (2004),

respondents' interpretations of their music uses and perceptions may lead to inaccurate responses.
They noted that they are aware that, in some cases, people's perceptions of their intentions and

attention to their musical participation are not always unambiguously linked to the amount of

time they actually devote to music listening or making. They likewise believe that analyzing

people's perceptions of their use of music is important because it allows people to better

understand the role of music in everyday life in terms of how it shapes and reflects an

individual's identity; and in considering music in everyday life as a way of organizing one's

internal and social world. And this, according to sociologist Frith (1996), stems from the

"imagined self."

The COVID-19 outbreak quarantined people all over the world. The world has indeed

taken a 180-degree turn, generating depressive symptoms in people all around the world.

Communities all across the world looked for novel strategies to deal with rising anxiety,

anxiety, uncertainty, boredom, and social isolation. Surprisingly, music seemed to bring comfort.

Media reports showed videos of apartment block performances, synchronous nightly cheering,

and collective sing-a-longs from around the world were widely shared on the internet. These

anecdotes demonstrate that music listening helped people cope amidst the pandemic.

Using the Use and Gratification Theory which explains why people use certain types of

media, what needs do they have to use them, and what gratifications do they derive from the use

of it, it can be said that music listening likewise helped university students to continue aspiring

for their dreams amidst the pandemic. Music has been demonstrated to improve concentration on

specific tasks while staying at home. Music likewise aids in the improvement of the brain's

ability to recall information and make connections.

The variables influencing university students' music listening choices vary. This is

because each student has a unique set of circumstances. This is also supported by their
own discretion. Some people listen to music per se because they need to concentrate regardless

of music platform, while others listen to music on a certain platform because they require the

distinctive qualities of that music platform to improve their effectiveness; or some might want to

listen to music while studying or to just listen to music in between study breaks as a form of

entertainment. While these aspects may differ, it can be stated that music can assist university

students in combating academic stress in the middle of the pandemic's serious challenges.

It is likewise noteworthy to note that factors that affect media consumption not only

relates to academic-related stress, but includes Covid-19 pandemic stress, family problems, and

even self-doubts problems of each student. Thus, students make their own decisions based on

their moods and preferences. The medium employed is used to meet their specific needs. Thus,

there are a myriad of reasons why students listen to music, and that to music is primarily to

manage, and regulate its moods regain a stable state of mind.

Indeed, Covid-19 has changed our consumption of media. While music is not a miracle

cure, nor is it a replacement for medical treatment. it may be a crucial component of not only

university students, but everyone, in everyday well-being and self-care, as well as a helpful

companion in coping with more severe health concerns. It noteworthy to remember what Plato

once quoted that “music gives wings to mind.”