Teenage mental health is an urgent issue to tackle as approximately one in five teens suffer from at least one mental health disorder.

A number of studies have indicated that music listening patterns can be predictive of moods. Specifically, self-selected sad music is listened to more commonly when in depressive moods to validate emotions and provide consolation.

My hypothesis is that streaming services could give consenting teenagers behavioural nudges to seek help when their music listening habits indicate periods of depression. These nudges could help teenagers seek help to stop prolonged dips in mental health and prevent possible suicides.

Firstly, a means to determine the music that an individual chooses when feeling depressed would have to be identified and could be a dynamic questionnaire which appears when a song, album or artist is continuously chosen. Secondly, when changes in music choices are noticed, nudges for the listener to seek help could be provided. These nudges could include giving access to psychologists or suicide hotlines. Further notifications could alert other pre-chosen individuals (a parent, friend or psychologist) to the dip so that emotional support could be provided.

Music streaming companies have an extremely large audience of younger users as seen by Spotify reaching roughly half of every 16-24 year-old in America each week. Though not every teenager listens to music regularly and not every teenager would choose to have their music choices monitored for privacy reasons, this solution could help many teenagers seek help and end depression dips and possible suicide.