I always have a bit of a moral conundrum whenever I walk into a book store or record shop.
Because both of these things — physical books and vinyl records — are fundamentally dated technologies and have been for years now, and they really have very little logical place in the world anymore.
Ebooks have the same functionality as regular books (meaning you can read them) plus extremely useful features like search capability if you need to quickly search for a passage in the book, or highlighting support if you want to mark memorable portions of the book and have them all saved, or dictionary integration if you come across a word that you don't know. In other words, ebooks are fundamentally better books. They do the job of being a book better than a book.
Likewise, music streaming services have the same functionality as vinyl records (meaning you can play music on them) plus you don't need any expensive turntables or preamps or monitors or finicky needles, and a single monthly subscription will get you unlimited access to an entire Amazon warehouse of vinyl records, plus you can easily sort those songs into playlists and view the lyrics in real time and have music automatically recommend to you and a bunch of other useful crap that I don't have to explain because we all have seen Spotify. Music streaming services are fundamentally better vinyl records. They do the job of being a vinyl record better than a vinyl record.
But my moral conundrum comes in the fact that I will always be in love with physical books and vinyl records. Neither has any significant logical place in the world today, but they will always have an emotional place in the world for me. There's something captivating about finding a book you love in a bookstore, picking it up and flicking through the pages, examining whether the publisher chose a glossy or matte finish for the cover, what font they chose for the pages, how heavy it feels in your hands, what shade of white the pages are...
And there's something captivating about picking up a vinyl record, feeling how thick the disc is in your hands, running your fingertip across the grooves, examining every trace of ink on the album artwork, seeing whether the artist chose a standard jacket or a gatefold or the infamous trifold, exploring what visuals they decided to fill each of these inner layers with...
No matter how far technology advances, humans still have a psychological and evolutionary tie to physical objects. When we love something, we want to touch it. We want to hug our friends. We want to kiss our spouses. And we want to hold the books and albums that we love. Ebooks and music streaming services don't quite scratch this itch for the physical. I don't think we feel as connected to the art we love when that art is housed inside a computer screen. When I love an album, I want to hold it in my hands. That's not me being a naturalist; that's me being a human.
But this also proves my earlier point even more: if my incentive for buying physical books and vinyl records is because that's what the cavemen inside me would have wanted, then I'm only proving they are both dated technologies.
As our lives continue to dig deeper into the digital sphere, I think we need to find better ways to bridge this physical touch gap. Books and records aren't the first time we've faced this dilemma, and they certainly won't be the last...
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