Hunter Tice (a man after my own heart) writes for Christ and Pop Culture about the importance of physical media in a world that is increasingly detached from the material when engaging with art.
An increasing reliance on digital micro-conveniences results in digitality becoming a powerhouse vehicle of mindless consumption and physical disengagement. As our culture endorses digital consumption in more facets of life, it inherently devalues the significance of physicalness. That has incredible implications on how society functions, including how we perceive the world of media and artistic expression.
Flipping from album to album, song to song, I keenly feel that detachment. The absence of the physical makes everything so ephemeral, in many ways more forgettable. Like Tice, if you had told me in high school I would have access to most of the world’s music at my fingertips at nearly all times, I would have died of shock with a smile on my face. What could be better?
It turns out something is lost in unfettered access to everything. Meaning that is attached to objects that delight us with what they provide decreases. Memory is attenuated.
I just bought a new cassette player for the first time since the early 90s, when I had a Sony Sports Walkman. I adored that device, but it was stolen out of my locker with my friends' Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me tape inside (sorry Billy). Hopefully, the experience lives up to the fondness I recollect.
Source: christandpopculture.com
