Today, music is listened to almost exclusively digitally – anytime and anywhere via smartphone, tablet, computer or games console. One of the best-known services for this is Spotify. The platform offers access to millions of songs, radio plays, podcasts and now also videos. Spotify’s diverse offering makes it attractive – but also entails risks, especially for children and young people.
Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service. Around 100 million items of content are currently available – including music, podcasts, audio books and radio plays. Users can create playlists, follow others and share their favorite songs, for example via Spotify codes. Spotify also displays lyrics for many tracks. In addition to audio content, music videos and short video clips are now also available.
In the free version, content can only be listened to with an internet connection, with regular advertisements running in between. The paid premium version allows offline listening without advertising and offers functions such as unlimited skipping of tracks.
Spotify has offered a chat function since August 2025: playlists, songs or podcasts can be shared and commented on directly within the app. To chat, a request must first be confirmed. The messaging function can also be used like a classic messenger.
Music plays a central role for young people: it helps them find their identity, communicate with friends and deal with their feelings. Spotify makes it easy to discover new music at any time, browse through other people’s playlists and listen to content wherever you are. Podcasts are also becoming increasingly popular with young people.
Spotify also works on games consoles such as Playstation or X-Box and via voice assistants such as Alexa Echo and Google Home. This allows young people to listen to music while playing games or play songs by voice command.
Radio plays are particularly interesting for younger children. Many well-known series – from Bibi Blocksberg and Benjamin Blümchen to Die drei ??? – are available on Spotify. The Spotify Kids app can also be used via a paid Premium Family subscription, which offers a more limited and more suitable framework for children.
Spotify works with a highly personalized recommendation algorithm. In the profile button, Spotify creates individual playlists, for example “Your mix of the week”, from the music you have recently listened to and your usage data. This is also linked to the storage of usage behavior.
Spotify contains content that may be unsuitable for children and young people – such as music or audio books with extremist messages and violent content or podcasts that spread fake news and disinformation. Spotify has recently been criticized because an increasing number of AI-generated songs are appearing on the platform. The tracks are suggested via recommendations and can contain sexist or racist statements. Such content is not always easy for children and young people to recognize as problematic.
The new chat function and comments under podcasts give rise to communication risks such as cyberbullying, hate speech and unwanted contact from strangers.
The video content – short clips such as YouTube Shorts – can contribute to more intensive use and cannot be deactivated.
There is also criticism of the fact that Spotify pays out low revenues to artists.
Spotify is based in Sweden and claims to implement measures to protect children and young people. In Premium and Family subscriptions, parental control settings can be activated to hide problematic, “explicit” content. Multiple accounts can also be managed together.
Spotify Kids is a special offer for children that only contains child-friendly audio content and excludes video functions. However, this service can only be used with a paid Family subscription.
Content can be reported via a reporting function for podcasts and playlists and via an online form for individual titles.
Officially, Spotify is only allowed from the age of 18, with parental consent from the age of 16. As parents, you should discuss in detail with your child in advance whether it makes sense to use the offer. The following points are important:
Regular discussions and support remain the most important protection – regardless of technical settings.
