The Irvine Unified School District has blocked Spotify, a digital music service, disallowing students to listen to music using the app or the website. However, due to many benefits that Spotify brings, I believe that Spotify should not be banned for the students.

Spotify is a digital music service that allows its audience to access millions of songs. It is one of the most used music services in the world, reaching over 100 million users as of 2016, according to the Telegraph. With its remarkable success as a website, the music service reached out to the mobile market where it released the “Spotify” app in 2008.

Spotify delivers to a wide audience with its various genres of music. On play.spotify.com, people can freely play whatever music they want, whenever they want to. This idea lead to its famous slogan of “play any song, anytime.”

Users can download songs, make playlists, and subscribe to famous artists for the newest trends. For these reasons, 47% of the users are 13-24 years old, according to statista.com. However, the Irvine Unified School District blocks play.spotify.com from all devices on campus.

Websites are commonly blocked because its material can be found too violent, sexual, and distracting for students. I believe that Spotify is being blocked because it presumably distracts students’ learning.

But even so, I believe that Spotify is one of the least distracting websites that students can have access to. In addition, spotify offers music that has educational benefits for students. Colorado University states “Listening to any music that is personally enjoyable—be it Mozart or Madonna—can aid memory performance and concentration while studying.”And therefore, the district should give students access to this music service.

Spotify is a digital music service and nothing more. Even when a student is listening to  music, he or she can not access any material other than music itself. Therefore, Spotify ensures that students will not be distracted by visual stimulants  and will focus on the material given in class.

Spotify gives free music service. This means that the district does not need to pay anything for students to gain access. Because of its complementary services, students will be able to listen to high quality music without having to pay anything, making Spotify a very viable source of music.

At the end of the day, Spotify is loved by students and for that reason, should not be blocked.