Spotify Wrapped 2025 makes users panic because the music listening age is far from their real age

Spotify Wrapped 2025 launched a 'music listening age' feature that surprised many users on social media when their results did not match their real age.

Many people wonder how Spotify Wrapped calculates music listening age - Photo: Spotify

According to People , Spotify released its annual music listening report, analyzing user data over the past year, on December 3.

Spotify describes Wrapped, which has been around since 2016, as "a mirror of the moments, moods, and memories that make your listening experience unique."

Unlike a few years ago, Spotify added a new category to the 2025 list: a person's "listening age." As soon as the feature was released, users rushed to social media to share the results, and some were shocked by their musical age.

How does Spotify calculate music listening age?

Spotify Wrapped users' listening ages are linked to a "reminiscence bump" and "a tendency to feel most connected to music from their younger years."

Users shared on social media that they received music listening ages ranging from 16 to 92, and many found that their music listening ages were not close to their actual ages.

The Listening Age feature in Spotify Wrapped 2025 reveals that many people's musical age is far different from their real age - Photo: Spotify

To determine a person's listening age, Spotify looks at their overall music preferences relative to their actual age, not just the average age of all their favorite artists or when songs were released.

The first factor Spotify looked at was the release date of all the songs that person listened to in the past year. From there, they figured out which five-year period that person listened to more than their peers.

Spotify then identifies this five-year period as the listener's "reminiscence bump" and assumes they were between 16 and 21 when those songs were released. For example, if Spotify assigns someone a listening age of 30, that means they listened to a lot of music from the early 2010s.

The service explains their logic with an example: "If you listen to more music from the late 1970s than other people your age, we playfully hypothesize that your current 'listening age' is 63, which is the age of someone who spent their formative years in the late 1970s."

Many people humorously claim that Spotify "aged them decades" - Photo: Spotify

While the new listening age feature may be the most talked about category, Wrapped still implements familiar favorites — including: listening time, top songs, top podcasts, top artists, top genres, top albums, and fan charts, among others.

Each person's Spotify Wrapped will be different depending on the type of content they listen to and their personal settings. For example, listening time counts all the time a user spends listening to any content, even when it's in private mode.

To determine each person's favorite artist, Spotify calculates the total listen time and number of plays for each artist's song. They also use this information to compare the listen time and number of plays across all fans, ranking users within that artist's audience.

Additionally, this year, Spotify analyzed listeners’ emotional preferences and created Your Clubs for each genre and mood. It also provided listening archives to reflect users’ biggest music discovery days, most listened to days, and most nostalgic days.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/spotify-wrapped-2025-khien-nguoi-dung-hot-hoang-vi-tuoi-nghe-nhac-khac-xa-tuoi-that-20251205130223672.htm