While living in that liminal space between Christmas and New Years Eve, I tended towards what has taken over my free time since finishing finals: doomscrolling. Despite the feeling that I was wasting away, the shame of being unproductive, and above all not truly enjoying what I was doing with my time, the allure of that rhythmic scroll possessed me. That was until a revelation from my own feed—posts calling 2026 the year that we turn away from digital media in favour of the physical, woke me up.
Multiple videos, featuring nostalgic CD and vinyl players, as well as displays of DVD and Blu-ray discs, were calling for the abandonment of “digital media”. This interest in reducing digital engagement with culture is a shift from the past decade, where digital streaming first took over physical formats.
This spreading trend can be attributed to many reasons, including ownership, lack of advertisement, and overall being more thoughtful as to what we are consuming. What initially attracted customers to streaming, a preference for immediate access over ownership, has recently been rejected. Many people cannot justify spending a constantly accruing amount of money on multiple streaming services just to be at the mercy of expiring licensing agreements and platforms removing original content, potentially wiping it from existence. Services can additionally alter content, something that is impossible with physical media.
It usually becomes cheaper to buy films and music that you definitely like rather than having to filter out select titles from a streaming service. Additionally, these days it is difficult to find a streaming service for a reasonable price that does not include advertisement, which viewers have no choice but to accept and be impacted by. Physical media doesn’t contain the overwhelming volume of ads distracting you from content that streaming does.
As we enter the new year, many of our resolutions include leading a more thoughtful life, something which physical media can help us to achieve. The simple reality of not having the world at your fingertips—needing to think about what you really want instead of flipping between entertainment hoping it will satisfy that itch—is a way to get to know ourselves better and become conscious consumers.
Social media and streaming services can be dangerous to mental health, due to the increase in excessive binging, passive consumption, and an unrealistic portrayal of lifestyles. The singular purpose of physical media allows for a less overstimulating experience; even just the tactile feel of inserting a disc or downloading music onto an MP3 player is calming because you are focusing on one thing specifically.
Moving away from digital media can be achieved in a number of ways. In recent years, vinyl has grown in popularity as an analog mode of listening to music, and many artists have gone back to this medium for selling music. CD players, however, offer a more portable mouthpiece, even more so when downloading music onto a MP3 player onto which videos and photos can also be uploaded.
DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD were once the standard to enjoy movies and shows before the switch to streaming services, and became prized items for cinephiles due to their exclusive content, such as interviews and bloopers (while streaming typically only offers the theatrical release of a film). Physical books, newspapers, and magazines offer an additional way to enjoy content and stay up to date without the distracting vacuum of social media or ads. More active engagement with media includes games, which could either come in the form of disc-video games or physical board games. These are good ways to exercise your mind while staying away from scrolling.
The beauty of these forms of media is that there is something for everyone’s taste, there are countless opportunities to find what you enjoy and what works best for you. Many charity shops offer affordable used CD and video players as well as content to watch on them. Oxfam, Enable Ireland, and St. Vincent de Paul’s charity shops offer all forms of physical media, and conveniently, each has a location on George’s Street. Supporting local, independent businesses is also a great way to get exposed to new artists, and Dublin is home to an abundance of them, including Tower Records, Spindizzy Records, and The Secret Book and Record Store, all nearby Trinity. Likewise, physical media is not so dated that you wouldn’t find it under your TV stand or in the attic of your parents’ home. This switch also allows you to get creative—your next passion project could be restarting up an old iPod, developing your own board game, or scrapbooking your latest travels.
Generation Z, the group that seems to advocate most for this switch, grew up with both physical and analog media, and witnessed this shift towards streaming.
It is not an unrealistic dream to want to revert back to physical media; to feel a sense of ownership and pride in our cultural intake, and to not be overwhelmed by the volume of information being forced on us every possible moment.
As the new year progresses, I hope to commit more to embracing physical media. It is a beautiful form of entertainment that risks being lost without proper support.
