Physical media has always been important to me. From my first form of physical media, a Disney princess CD player, to my latest, a pink digital camera, I have used and loved various forms of physical media throughout my life. My parents are avid lovers of physical media, with our home being full of books, cameras, DVDs, CDs and records over the years. Even my favorite movie is about the goings-on in a record store.
There is something so personal and intimate about taking the extra time to put on a vinyl record or having physical DVDs of all your favorite movies, rather than just pulling out a phone and using an app to listen to music, watch TV or take a picture. In this digital age of social media and streaming services, it is more important than ever to preserve the art that is physical media.
Physical vs online media
In the past few years, there has been more of a shift away from online media on streaming and subscription services and towards physical media such as vinyls, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes and cameras. People of all different ages are going back to physical media, but interestingly, nearly three-quarters of Gen Z have purchased at least one physical media item in the past year. This shift isn’t a mainstream thing, just something that is bubbling in the background, but it is very important and very telling.
One of the main reasons why people are moving more towards physical media is because of subscription fatigue, and “Netflix Syndrome.” Subscription fatigue is when customers become overwhelmed by the number of subscriptions that they currently pay for or that are available to them in the market. According to Deloitte’s 2025 Digital Media Trends, 41% of consumers say the content available on streaming video services isn’t worth the price. Additionally, according to a different survey on subscription fatigue, over the past year, 40.3% of people surveyed said they’ve canceled a subscription service.
When streaming services were first created, they were an easy and cheap way to watch what you want, when you want. Now, there are 10 plus different streaming platforms for people to choose from. It’s overwhelming to have so many choices, to have your content stratified across so many different platforms that you have to sign up to all of them. It seems like they are turning into just another version of cable, going against the reason why they were created in the first place.
Additionally, all of these streaming services have led to what some refer to as ‘Netflix Syndrome,’ which is the act of spending more time choosing than actually watching content. As people’s range of choices has diversified and become overloaded, with each streaming service offering hundreds of movies and TV shows, the time spent thinking about what content to watch rather than watching content is increasing.
This can often lead to more stressful and irritable feelings towards the content, rather than the relaxing and fun feelings that are intended, as some people spend upwards of 30 minutes or more looking through movie selections and trying to choose something to watch. Obviously, the main benefit and the main selling point of streaming services is ease of access. You can watch virtually whatever you want whenever you want it. But the problem with this is that it can quickly become too much, and eventually, overindulging in anything can become a problem. When films and music are infinitely available, people will inherently value them less and pay attention to them less.
There’s also the problem with disappearing content and edited content as well. When streaming services are done with content, particularly stuff that they make, they’ll often just get rid of it and completely wipe it from the internet. There are countless examples of movies and TV shows that are only accessible through The Internet Archive, or physical copies such as DVDs and VHS tapes. Additionally, over the years, many streaming services have gotten a bad reputation for editing and changing content.
There are numerous examples of edits to content being made, or even full episodes of shows being not included in the streaming lineup, for social or political reasons. This has even been seen with E-books, particularly Kindle books, where edits were made to the books or even covers were changed and the company was able to remotely go into people’s devices and make those changes without their consent.
These edits could potentially change an important detail or plot of the piece of media, leading to a different watching experience than intended. With physical media, however, if there is a dispute between the publisher and the streaming service, or if there is an edit/deletion made to the piece of media, it doesn’t affect the physical copy.
Why Is physical media important?
Physical media builds community. That’s not to say that online media doesn’t do that as well, but with physical media, there’s not just a community around a specific piece of media, like a certain movie or TV show. There is also a community built around the physicality of the media. With things like CDs, DVDs, vinyl records etc., people will get these items for free on the curb, or for five dollars at a thrift store, or maybe even trade with or receive these items from another person. They will take them home, they will watch or listen to them and enjoy them.
When they are done with them, they give them back to the community, for someone else to take and enjoy them. That type of sharing of media it’s something that can’t be done with streaming services, or with music apps. People are able to share media within their communities, building a much deeper connection to that piece of media and the community around them, getting much more out of it than they would have had they just watched it on Netflix or listened to it on Spotify.
Physical media is also tangible. People get to hold it in their hands and actually physically feel the piece of media. It adds a more personal level to that media and it’s an experience that they can’t get with streaming. When people are able to touch a physical piece of media, and perform the task of taking it out of its packaging, putting it into a player and turning it on, they get so much more connection and meaning from it. There is more depth in that experience compared to turning on Netflix or Spotify.
Additionally, physical media tends to include a single-use tool, such as a record player, a TV or a camera, that can only do one thing, and thus, further allows people to connect to a piece of media.
When people are accessing media through their phone, they can be more easily distracted by everything else they can do with their phone, like checking the news or doomscrolling social media. For example, someone could go on Spotify to put on some study music, intending to study for a test, but then end up on TikTok for the next hour, because the app is right next to Spotify. When people use a piece of media by itself, they are able to better block out those distractions and focus more on that individual piece of media.
Physical media is so important because it drives connection. Connection to a community, connection to the particular piece of media and connection to yourself. But it isn’t just about connection to the specific piece of media, it’s about the time, effort and attention put into it, because people care. Everyone is incredibly desensitized and disconnected from the real world nowadays, and with social media rotting brains and destroying attention spans, this kind of connection and devotion is getting harder and harder to come by.
People are getting lost in the mindless slop of doomscrolling, spending hours of their free time on something so trivial that they will instantly forget about it as soon as they do something else, or even when they scroll to the very next video. Instead, people should be unplugging from their devices and devoting their time to something offline, something that actually stimulates their brain and gives them connection and meaning.