It may sound bizarre, but today parents and their teenage children actually attempt to hang out and listen to music together. This was not always the case. “Larry, the president of the company, likes to say how his mother thought that his rock and roll was not even music,” [Edison Research’s Megan] Lazovick says. “They could not relate at all about music. It seems generationally a lot different today. There seems to be a lot more connection over music with parents and their teenagers.” […] Edison Research found that 76 percent of parents and 60 percent of teens agree with the statement “listening to music is a bonding activity for you and your teenagers.”
I can’t even imagine. I remember my parents mildly flipping out when they found a copy of the Dead Kennedys’ Plastic Surgery Disasters in my bedroom — one of many times that I was questioned on the music I was listening to. These days it must be a lot more difficult to rebel when your parents grew up listening to Beastie Boys and Marilyn Manson (or maybe even GG Allin!). I think that’s one reason gaming videos are so popular — it’s a phenomenon that today’s parents can’t wrap their heads around.
Some more from the article:
When the two demographic groups can mingle without embarrassing and infuriating each other, osmosis occurs, and parents start to stream more often. 68 percent of the 1,909 parents surveyed agree with the statement “your teenagers assist you with new technology,” while 52 percent say they learned about a streaming service from a child.
Intuitively to me, both of those percentages seem quite low. But we can expect the way we — and the older population — listen to music to continue transforming, both as tastes simultaneously broaden and merge, and convenient (and democratized) technological solutions overtake a restricted, ad-supported FM bandwidth.
🔗→ Teenagers Are Teaching Their Parents to Stream, and Radio Is Nervous