When streaming spikes, so too do auto fatalities.

It all relates to new albums.

Distracted Driving

According to researchers affiliated with Harvard Medical School, an uptick in traffic fatalities correlates to album releases from popular entertainers like Taylor Swift and Drake. As their first step, researchers checked Spotify’s Top Ten Albums for first day releases between 2017 and 2023. Then, they checked the crash fatality data through the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

Comparing the results, they found that during the first day of a Taylor Swift or Drake release (or one from another popular entertainer), streaming soared by 40 percent. At the same time, traffic crash fatalities were up by 15 percent. Putting the two fact sets together, they assumed a correlation and perhaps causation. After that, taking the next step, they hypothesized that the distraction of accessing the new album created the crash. They also were able to conclude that it was most likely that the individuals in these accidents were young and driving alone.,

Our Bottom Line: Externalities

Sometimes our lives are affected by decisions others make. Called an externality, those events can relate to factory pollutants that get us sick although we have no connection to the factory. Similarly, when others get a flu vaccine, they keep everyone healthier by not spreading germs. From here, we can also cite a slew of externalities that relate to new albums from Taylor Swift or Drake. Yes, they bring pleasure that spreads beyond the listener. But also, as the Harvard study indicates, the new albums correlate to, and maybe even cause, elevated traffic fatalities. They take us to externalities because the impact of a fatality ripples far beyond the victim.

My sources and more: Thanks to the Slate Money Numbers Round for inspiring today’s post. Then, for more detail, we took a look at the NBER working paper that described the streaming/fatality study.