Music saves lives.
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According to a new study, the song, “1-800-273-8255,” by the rapper Logic, and featuring Alessia Cara and Khalid, which boasts some 432 million views on YouTube alone, has likely saved hundreds of lives and prevented myriad suicides since its release in 2017.
Given the widespread public awareness of the song, which is named after the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and depicts someone in crisis calling the number in the lyrics, the new study claims many have been able to prevent taking their own life because the phone number was known to them.
According to the conclusion of the study in the peer-reviewed journal, BMJ: “Logic’s song ‘1-800-273-8255’ was associated with a large increase in calls to Lifeline. A reduction in suicides was observed in the periods with the most social media discourse about the song.”
Along with the hundreds of millions of streams, Logic’s song peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard charts in the U.S. and he performed the track at the 2017 MTV Music Awards and the 2018 Grammy Awards.
And it was around those times when suicide prevention increased in awareness, the study determines.
Researchers led by Thomas Niederkrotenthaler of the Medical University of Vienna looked at the data linking the Logic song to daily calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number as well as daily suicides in the United States to see if the track’s message helped to create a change in people’s behavior.
According to the outlet, Breezy Scroll: “Using Twitter posts to estimate audience attention over a month, they discovered that there were an additional 9,915 calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the 34 days following the three events with the most public attention (the song’s release, the MTV Video Music Awards 2017, and the Grammy Awards 2018). It is a 6.9% increase over the expected number. During the same time, there were 245 suicides or 5.5 percent fewer than projected.”
While it’s virtually impossible to be 100% sure that there is a direct link from the song to the prevented suicides and increased calls, researchers felt confident there was most likely a link and that music saves lives.
See the abstract of the study HERE.
Photo by Brian Stukes/Getty Images
