As streaming continues to be the main line of entertainment, we’re rediscovering old media treasures from another time. From visiting vinyl record stores and bringing digital cameras to parties, Gen Z is participating in activities our parents and grandparents once did. 

Millennials and Gen Xers have told me stories about how cumbersome it was to carry a flip phone, camera, Walkman and even a flashlight wherever they went. Now, they’re content with having those all in one device.

Gen Z tends to land on both sides of the timeline. 

I remember lugging around our DVD binder and my little DVD player whenever I went on car rides. My mom’s CD binder from the ‘90s would sit at my feet in the backseat while she played Michael Jackson and Enigma. I would guess that 80% of my life is documented in the six shelves of photo albums in our basement my mom made. 

Now, we have streaming services and camera rolls that require $10 a month to get an extra terabyte of storage. Monthly fees, lack of ownership and unfair distribution to artists have brought down the streaming appeal, according to The Week. 

“I think it’s important to buy a lot of physical media,” said Isaac Schroeder, a first-year student at the University of Minnesota. “If you buy from the artist or author, I think they make a lot more money from it since they don’t make a lot of money through streaming services.”  

The money from music streams first goes to the artist’s rights holders, which include record labels, publishers and collecting societies, according to Streaming Media. The money is distributed to the artist based on royalty systems and contracts. 

When consumers buy vinyl records and CDs, the money bypasses most of these systems and contributes more to the artist. 

In the book world, authors can experience similar trends with e-books on the rise. Only now, ebooks pay more than physical copies. Depending on the popularity and contract, royalties still play a huge role in the author’s success. These contrasting media affect how fans wish to support their artist. 

However, as a developing author myself and a believer in authors’ entitlement, the decline of print books saddens me. In a time when most things can be archived and found on a smart device, I want to believe the beauty and simplicity of physical media continue to interest the human mind. 

Ruth DeFoster, assistant professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said ownership plays an important role in the desire for physical media. 

“From my perspective, in the streaming and digital environment, it’s very slippery and very intangible,” DeFoster said. “Even if you purchase something (on a streaming service), it’s not really yours.” 

My mom still asks me why I buy $20-$50 vinyl records when I have it all on Spotify. She’ll walk into my room, take one look at my CD and LP stack, and scowl at all that can easily fit into my smartphone. I can understand why it’s confusing to see younger generations want the hard way of accessing something like music.

But why do we still yearn for it? 

DeFoster paraphrased a quote by Ben Bagdikian, a media scholar, that resonated with me on the book side of physical media. 

“There’s something in the human DNA that really favors words on a page,” DeFoster said.

Art is too abstract and personal to disappear in the presence of technology. Books, in this case, will always interest the human mind. There will always be that spark in one’s heart when a physical medium catches one’s eye. 

Beth Mergens, a first-year student, related the feeling to the quote “Eating with your eyes first.” 

“If you go to a thrift store, there’s going to be older media you don’t understand or know the music of,” Mergens said. “But if you see an album cover that’s really pretty to you, you’re going to see it in the same way we see art.” 

The excuse that physical media is art is something many people agree on. When I first started collecting vinyl records, I didn’t understand them. I was amazed to see grooves on a disk play the music I love. It was magical — enchanting even. I think many people feel the same way and are constantly in awe of the outlets humans build their art into. 

Is sifting through our parents’ and grandparents’ media a normal occurrence in humans? If so, how relevant is it for Gen Z? 

DeFoster said pop culture tends to cycle every 20 years. This explains the rebranding of ‘90s Birkenstocks shoes when I was a kid or the comeback of ‘70s bell-bottom jeans in the ’90s when DeFoster was young. If fashion can do this, why can’t physical media? 

Bob Fuchs, a retail music manager at the record store Electric Fetus, has seen pop culture ebb and flow for decades. 

“So many times on Saturdays we’ll see families coming in with grandma and grandpa, their kids and then their kids’ kids,” Fuchs said. “It’s like two or even three generations all coming in to look at music.” 

Fuchs has worked at Electric Fetus for 37 years and continues to watch families grow. He described physical music as a “stamp in time,” which I cannot agree with more. 

My turntable is some Panasonic system with a dual cassette player built into it, courtesy of my grandma. My CD player is a silver Sony boombox that my mom used when she was in college. My mom stopped using her blue Sony digital camera around the time I turned 15, but now it’s capturing all my college memories.

I’ve personalized them with stickers and paint, but the fact that they’re a part of my family’s past makes me feel closer to them. Some people even settle for careers in physical media, bystanders to time and yet timeless themselves. 

“People are buying records and don’t even have a turntable. They just want it for the artwork,” Fuchs said. “They want to hang them up, and I think ‘This is great!’ They are appreciative of one element of what I think a record is, and it validates, practically, my whole life’s worth.”

Humans will always collect artifacts of their past. Through the owning and cherishing of these media, they remain locked in time. They will always be there, even as humanity continues to evolve. 

There’s no replacing the work of delicate fingers as they pop in a DVD, the steadiness of a hand as it directs the needle over the vinyl record or even the buying of physical books only for them to be stacked and used as a mini table. 

This is what feeds our soul and builds our identity. 

“Physical books and, in the same way, physical media are never going to go away,” DeFoster said. “We’re going to have these rounds of nostalgia that come and go for various types of physical media, but I don’t think they’re ever going to completely go away.”