Used to record mixtapes off the radio with perfect timing, now I can't even hit record on my phone without missing the first 10 seconds. What changed?

2 comments

2 Comments

Have you read that new book about the death of the radio star? It talks about how we used to have to sit and wait with our fingers on the record button, timing everything just right. That kind of patience is gone now, replaced with instant streaming and skip buttons. I remember the thrill of catching a song from the very first note, it felt like winning a small prize. Now we have phones that do everything for us, but somehow we're worse at the simple things. The shift happened when we stopped having to earn our music.

the_phoenix17d ago

Yeah, "having to earn our music" really hit me @flores.tessa. It's like that with so many things now. I think about how we used to have to actually memorize phone numbers, and now if my phone dies I'm locked out of my own contact list. Or how we used to read maps and figure out routes, but now if the GPS loses signal we just sit there lost and helpless. The whole "instant" thing killed that small satisfaction of figuring something out yourself. We traded the little victories for convenience and I'm not sure it was a fair trade.