Your Spotify Wrapped Podcast Won’t Help Your Loneliness

Last December, Spotify was released Annual “Wrapped” feature to its users. Each user’s listening habits were captured and condensed into a personalized, easily shareable collection that highlighted top artists, most played songs, and total listening time in a year-long retrospective. Spotify has been offering this feature to users for a decade, as well as marketing it to artists and labels as a way to track global trends in genre and listening habits.

However, for 2024, Spotify was used Google NotebookLM To submit Free personal podcast Based on the user’s “wrapped” results. Although AI has already been integrated into certain markets Spotify AI DJThis custom podcast was a new feature. Spotify Wrapped has taken it a step further, going beyond TikTok-ready social media images and videos by adding two voices having a minutes-long conversation about the user – you.

This personalized podcast takes advantage of current listening trends. according to Edison Research’s 2024 Infinite Demand ReportNearly 100 million people in the United States alone listen to podcasts on a regular basis. Nearly 50% of those over 12 have listened to at least one podcast in the past month. Our podcast shows and hosts cover it all: Real crime, Parenting, Current events, inkAnd even Hour-long explorations of Supreme Court cases. During the recent US presidential election, both major party candidates were guests on various podcasts, reaching millions of listeners per episode.

Perhaps the appeal of podcasting lies in its specificity: the topic at hand is determined by each listener’s unique choices. Want to hear your favorite celebrity’s perspective on a current event? Need tips on navigating the modern dating scene? There are audio files for that. However, with the Spotify Wrapped podcast, the choice of topic becomes especially unique and personal. Now, the issue is retrospective You: for you musical tastes, for you Listening habits, and for you Gender preferences.

The voices discuss your favorite genre, which could be something as specific as “Viking Vocal Acapella,” and speculate on what you’ve been up to that day with your accumulated listening minutes. (On my podcast, they speculated that the large amount of listening time on May 15 meant I went on a road trip when my kids, in fact, had the stomach flu and needed a distraction.) These voices, both male and female, discuss the uniqueness of the voice. Your listening tastes depend on the rating, which may lead you to believe that the artist is your favorite He should I know you are one of their big fans.

But the popularity of podcasts extends beyond choice of topic to style as well. When podcast hosts talk to each other and/or interview guests, they tend to create an informal, intimate format that allows the listener to feel part of the conversation.. Spotify’s AI-generated voices sure sound authentic and conversational. They interrupt each other, they ask each other questions, they have emotional impacts, and perhaps most importantly, they discuss You. Some comments from my podcast included “Your musical journey this year has been amazing!” and “It really shows how I understood their music.”

By hearing themselves discussed and praised, the user feels understood and part of an intimate group. Of course these are friends who know me, right? (Fahrenheit 451Suddenly the depiction of vulgar Mildred talking to the walls of her parlor becomes more sympathetic.)

Spotify Wrapped podcasts certainly showcase AI advancements. But more importantly, its popularity highlights the growing epidemic of loneliness. American adults are becoming increasingly isolated with fewer social connections, which means fewer friendships. The US Surgeon General noted Serious repercussions To this lack of connection, as social psychologist Jonathan Haidt did in his best-selling book The anxious generation.

At first glance, the AI-generated podcast looks remarkably similar to the way C.S. Lewis imagines early human debates The four love. He describes the friendship found in remembering events, ” “after death” This was done in an attempt to “draw conclusions for future use.” Lewis writes: “Friendship arises from mere companionship when two or more companions discover that they have some insight, interest, or even taste in common which the others do not share and which, until that moment, each has believed to be unique.” Treasure (or Burden).”

Spotify’s AI-generated podcast attempts to implement this feeling by paying attention to it Youwhich are shared among “friends” because you are so unique in your musical tastes. But instead of the intimacy that comes from a friendship where interests are shared and discussed, you’re simply listening on your smartphone alone.

Listening to this faux conversation about personal tastes and unseen moments can make you feel like you’re staring into the Mirror of Erised. in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore warns Harry that the mirror shows the viewer’s “deepest, most desperate desire.” [their] Their hearts, rendering them unable to make a decision or even move. Instead, they only long for what is seen in the mirror. Their lives will pass them by longing for what cannot be achieved.

We long to be known, understood, and have the warmth of friends. Instead, Spotify leaves us with wooden interruptions of AI-generated sounds that repeat what we already know: ourselves.