Families are turning to classics like cassettes and MP3s to separate listening time from smartphones.
During her time as a high school teacher, Alison Pappavaselio says she saw firsthand the negative impacts of unfettered technology access. When the 35-year-old's own children, now 4 and 6, showed an interest in music, she decided to do things differently.
Instead of a tablet, smartphone or even a smart speaker, Pappavaselio handed her older child a used Walkman she purchased on eBay and a handful of cassette tapes.
"I went a little bit more into the technology that I grew up with because it felt safe to me," said Pappavaselio, who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. "But you do have to teach them not to rip the tape out."
Some modern parents are trying to give their children access to music without the temptations of a screen and internet access. Facing a lack of stand-alone options, they're digging into their pasts and dusting off Walkmen, portable CD players and record players, along with their own dated album collections. Some are experimenting with voice-activated speakers such as Amazon's Echo and Google Home, while others are relearning how to rip MP3s.
While some adults are just nostalgic for their own childhood experiences with music, others want to protect their children's attention spans or minimize screen access before the teen years. According to Pew Research, the vast majority of teens are online every day, with 96 percent saying they check it daily. Almost half say they're online constantly.
Even the way children discover music has changed. They still hear hits on the radio during car rides and get recommendations from friends, but they're also picking up artists and songs from video games such as "Fortnight" or the algorithms in their music apps. A broad affection for '80s music, however, has made their parents old collections cool again.
Where have all the iPods gone
The consolidation of technology into smartphones and tablets has made screens nearly impossible to avoid. They have become so powerful, they've made a number of stand-alone devices practically obsolete: home phones, alarm clocks, point-and-shoot cameras and voice recorders. And, of course, the dedicated portable music player. Apple discontinued traditional iPods in 2017, and most online music consumption has migrated from buying music files to streaming subscriptions -- something Apple also sells.
The old devices still have some loyal users, but they take a little work to get running. More recent iPods can usually be fired up to work with iTunes, assuming you have all the relevant cables and ports on your computer. Some might need battery replacements, which you can get from a third party like iFixIt. There are also third-party apps for giving them a second life like Rockbox.
When Eileen Keribar İsvan's 8-year-old daughter wanted a way to listen to music on the bus to school, she knew just where to look. İsvan's mother had an old iRiver MP3 player that was up and running with a pair of fresh batteries.
"Part of the charm for me was giving her something that takes a little bit more effort," said İsvan, a Montessori preschool teacher who lives in Istanbul. "And it's a very sensorial experience, music. It's better when you can isolate it from any distractions."
Stores still sell some new digital music players, often for less than $50. Where do kids get MP3s in a post Napster world? You can still buy them, but at 50 cents to a dollar a piece, that can add up quickly. Multiple parents we spoke to use free tools that turn YouTube music videos into MP3s, or burn their own old CDs. Local libraries also have free options for downloading music files; all you need is your library card.
Even the companies trying to fill the gap left by the iPod are embracing old ways. The Yoto ($100) and Yoto Mini ($70) are simple music devices aimed at younger listeners. The devices are designed to look like retro toy radios. Children pop in small cards for the music they want, which you purchase separately -- just like the old days. It also has a tiny screen that shows different images as the music plays, for a splash of screentime.
"My daughter, who's 4½, will just keep pressing the button so it stays illuminated," says Pappavaselio.
The company recently issued a recall for it smaller Yoto Mini players sold between November 2021 and April 2024 as the batteries could overheat and even catch fire. But the company says old players can get a replacement battery and new devices are not at risk.
Another fresh option is the $115 Mighty, a digital music player that kids like because they load it up with a handpicked Spotify or Apple Music playlist instead of listening to their parents' favorites from the 1900s. It can hold more than 1,000 songs and looks like an iPod Shuffle.
"To give your kids access to find their own taste in music is so important and was such a rite of passage," says Rachel Childers, a musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. "Learning about yourself and what you're drawn to is one of the cool things about growing up."
Delaying screens but not forever
Screen time experts say that it's not necessarily the amount of time a child spends on a screen that's worrying, but the quality of that time. For example, a FaceTime chat is better than watching videos, and creating or reading are better than social media. Music falls on the positive end of the spectrum, but the experience is still different on tablet or phone.
For some parents, it's not the screens but tech companies' opaque algorithms. Childers and her musician husband naturally expose their kids, 9 and 12, to music through their jobs and practicing at home. When it came to access, they tried to move away from apps feeding their kids artists. During the pandemic, their son started watching music videos on his school Chromebook and got into '80s hair metal and Gene Simmons, but they wanted to expand his horizons.
"For us that's translated to taking YouTube off things," said Childers. "It's the opposite of deciding your own taste. It's a computer's idea of your own taste fed to you."
Now their kids have access to a record player, a CD player, an extensive library of classic rock CDs, and a transparent FM/AM radio from the MoMA Design Store.
"I don't think I am as opposed to staring at the screen of Spotify as I am to staring at a screen of 'Fortnight,'" says Chris Mayfield, a 51-year-old musician and UX designer.
For his two children, Mayfield has been experimenting with the right balance of control and freedom when it comes to technology. The family tried a Bark Phone and Mighty player but eventually let the 12-year-old be more in control of his own digital life. He's now obsessed with Peter Gabriel and The Police.
Professor of music education Sarah Perry isn't worried about her son, 11, looking at screens as he listens. Perry has cycled through all the classics, giving him a CD player and an old MP3 player. Now he's on an old iPhone set up just for music where he likes to read lyrics, something not so different from how Perry used to listen.
"I remember sitting on the bus and listening on my headphones, and we'd bring the album cover and look at the lyrics and sing," says Perry. "He's doing the same thing, he's just looking at it and scrolling through it."
