Physical Media: The 2020’s Rebirth

In today’s world, phones contain anything and everything, but society is seeing an increase in the desire for physical media. Whether it be books, vinyl, or even cassettes, there has been a resurgence of physical media in the 2020s. After the pandemic, people were left attached to their devices and have lost a tangible connection to physical media, in favor of catering to shortened attention spans for small, immediate spikes of dopamine from digital content. Our society is now heavily dependent on short forms of entertainment for faux-happiness.

In a study done by the Department of Education, there was found to be an evident

correlation between short form content and short attention spans. The Department wrote, “While traditional classroom settings have always required sustained focus and concentration, the constant exposure to fast-paced, attention-grabbing content may interfere with students' ability to maintain focus during [long] lectures, reading assignments, or assessments.” In simple terms, the more short, attention grabbing videos people watch, the less likely they are to be able to focus and understand enough work to pass courses due to their dopamine levels not being stimulated to the degree that short, entertaining content would. Human minds seemingly cannot function or properly engage between the differingly paced activities like classroom lectures and social media. This has been proven time after time in many studies like this one. Thus, sparks the trend of turning towards physical media to revive the dwindling mind.

In this mission to oppose constant digital escape, Gen Z has begun going to local libraries and hitting thrift stores to scavenge for 2000s media such as DVD players, wired headphones, MP3 players, and even game consoles such as Gameboys. Gen Z has seemingly grown tired of the constant movement from our ever-evolving world and the decreasing enjoyment from things less than 15-seconds. In our modern technological world, we can get everything at the hands of AI algorithms and a quick internet search, but there are growing numbers of people who are choosing not to. Will you be one of them?