What Do Kids Listen to Today? The Answer May Surprise You

Published: August 19, 2025

A young boy listening to headphones in a room

By Kayla DeKraker

As Gen Alpha trends begin to emerge, researchers note that younger children favor pop and K-Pop music.

Per Parents magazine, a recent poll revealed that of children surveyed, 31% chose pop as their favorite, 25% chose K-pop, 17% chose Christian, 17% chose country, and 10% chose hip-hop.

The poll comes as K-POP DEMON HUNTERS dominates Netflix. Though targeted toward children, the movie is anything but family-friendly.

“Our girl heroes use actual shamanic tools as spiritual weapons, perform a gut ritual on stage and their songs create a magical seal to ward off evil, which is traditional spirit worship dressed up like pop stars,” per Movieguide®. “These spiritual concepts could quietly lure kids away from biblical truth. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, ‘For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ While the entertainment industry treats demons as fantasy, we as Christians see beyond the flashy package into the truth of spiritual warfare.”

The movie is just the latest example of the growing K-Pop empire that encompasses everything from fashion to makeup to music. As children gain more access to music through technology, parents need to be mindful that their children aren’t listening in the same ways we did growing up.

“Students today like music, but they consume it very differently than people did when in college,” Yale sociologist Grace Kao said. “We listened to the radio or watched MTV, so we were fed something from a DJ or from actual people who were programming the content. You’d end up listening to a lot of music that you didn’t like, but you’d also have a better sense of genres than students now.”

Kao continues: “Today students consume music through Spotify or YouTube and so forth, which use algorithms to give you songs that are similar to the songs you liked, but not necessarily from the same genre. Students can have diverse and wide-ranging experiences with music, but I found that they have trouble identifying that any particular song is part of a genre. So I feel like it’s important for them to listen to a lot of music.”

Through the apps, the fandom continues to gain momentum.

“Being tuned into your child’s interests, no matter how different they may seem, offers a valuable opportunity for connection,” Annabelle Canela of Parents Magazine says.

Media-wise parents know this to be true. Movieguide® provides questions for parents to ask their children in order to train them to understand what they are consuming. While these questions are geared towards movies and television programs, some hold true for music as well:

1. What kind of role models, positive and negative, are the main characters?

2. Who is the hero? And, who is the villain? And, how do their character traits agree with a biblical hero or villain?

3. Do the moral statements and themes agree with a biblical worldview?

4. Are real consequences to sin exposed and rebuked?

5. How are relationships and love portrayed?

6. How are Christians, religion, the church, the Bible, and God portrayed?

7. Does the language honor God and people?

8. If violence is included, how is it presented?

9. How much sexual activity and nudity is included?

10. How appropriate is this material for my family and me?

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