December hit, and suddenly social media was flooded with music boasts from streaming minutes to top fans to eclectic artists suddenly surging in popularity.
For people with no children, the annual Spotify Wrapped offered the chance to reflect on the year through the music that shaped you. For parents, however, well, our top artists were Danny Go!, Howdy Toons, Pink Fong and Hot Wheels (Not that that’s what my personal Spotify Wrapped showed because my 2-year-old and 5-year-old have very specific tastes).
But what about my music? What about my worship time when I was by myself? What about the Relient K playlist I still keep on shuffle? What about that one week that I listened to Taylor Swift’s new album nonstop?
Spotify heard parents like me and rectified their Wrapped game, along with some other features. The music streamer now offers Managed Accounts for young listeners for free. For families like mine that can’t stomach the $12.99 a month just to have Elmo play on repeat, it’s welcome news.
Per Spotify, managed accounts give listeners 13 and under (or region equivalent) their own space to discover music while parents and guardians maintain control over their listening environment.
“We hear from so many parents who agree: listening to music is a good use of their child’s time. With a managed account, young listeners can dive into Spotify’s catalogue of music via their own, separate account. They can explore new artists, stream the soundtrack from a favorite movie, and create their own playlists, all while parents and guardians stay in control by setting boundaries around content and features,” according to a press release.
“With a managed account, young listeners will receive their own Wrapped experience. An added bonus? That means that the days of schoolyard singalongs dominating your Wrapped are over,” the release continued.
Spotify also enabled several safety features for young listeners:
All managed accounts have built-in default controls put in place with young listeners in mind. For example, managed accounts are private, meaning they aren’t searchable or discoverable by others. Young listeners also do not have purchasing capabilities and cannot access certain features like Messages.
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In addition to these core features, managed accounts have adjustable settings that can be controlled by parents or guardians from the Parental Controls page in settings. This includes an explicit content control, which is turned on automatically for every new managed account. This restricts access to any content marked as explicit by rights holders. Parents and guardians can also turn off playback of specific tracks and artists.
Video and Canvas (short looping visuals accompanying songs) are also disabled by default, keeping the experience focused on listening.
Spotify is not the first listening platform to shift gears to support families.
Apple recently launched several new safety features to protect children.
“Apple offers a suite of tools that can help protect kids from seeing inappropriate content like violence or nudity and help ensure parents approve any new in-app contacts, via SensitiveContentAnalysis and PermissionKit, respectively. Developers can also integrate the Declared Age Range API, which allows them to request a child’s age range and tailor their app experience accordingly. This is done in a privacy-protective way, without sharing a child’s birthday,” according to the tech giant.
Apple also previewed safety features earlier this year, including:
- The ability for parents to share their child’s age range with apps in a privacy-preserving manner.
- Expanded default protections for teens ages 13 to 17.
- More granular age ratings on the App Store for adolescents (13+, 16+, and 18+), and more detailed labeling for app capabilities that may affect content appropriateness, like advertising, user-generated content, or in-app controls like parental controls.
- Updates to Communication Limits, which give parents the ability to remotely approve new contacts for their children when using Apple apps.
For families who want music/audio options without being being tied to the internet, we recommend a toniebox or Yoto player. Each of these devices allows children to select a story or music from figurines or cards that have been curated by parents.
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