As another festive season comes to an end I am having to find homes for all the lovely presents I was privileged enough to receive. My favourite presents under the tree are almost always book-shaped and few things are more thrilling than beginning the year with a shelf of fresh tomes to entice you. However, for those that don't desire books to read, or furnish their homes with, it is becoming harder and harder to buy for because what people want is digital.
I asked my daughter what she was hoping for from Santa this year and top of her list was the latest Minecraft update which does not consist of a cartridge that can be wrapped but a download direct to her Nintendo Switch. This presents a problem because she still wants the thrill of gifts under the tree but how do I put bits into a box?
When I was younger (alright grandad!); gifts given and received were almost always forms of physical media - books, CDs, DVDs and games to add to the collection that took pride of place on your shelf and told visitors something about yourself. Collections now are hidden on hard drives and inside apps and, in the case of Apple, Spotify, Audible and Kindle, aren't even owned but rather rented for the duration of your subscription/life. You cannot hand them on after your death, no matter how much you spent on them in life.
This is one of the reasons I collect, not just books, but vinyl records too. I could tell you that they sound "warmer" or are "better quality" but that's not always the case depending on age, providence, pressing and other factors. They are a record of who I was and what I was into that my daughter can keep and listen to (and sell if times get tough!).
One of my favourite objects is a copy of Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming, his Christian album. I am neither a Bob Dylan fanatic. (I like him as much as the next music fan), nor am I a Christian. But this record was given to my dad in 1979 when he left his job at a Christian printworks. It is signed by all his colleagues who added passages from the bible to help him through the next stage of life. It's not just a record of Bob Dylan's music, but of a moment in my dad's life and what people thought of him. How you gonna write that on an MP3?
At the start of the pandemic I read a book by David Sax entitled 'The Revenge of Analog' all about how various pre-digital technologies were experiencing a resurgence; not just vinyl but Moleskine notepads and Mont Blanc fountain pens, mechanical watches and 35mm film cameras. Post-pandemic he released a second volume entitled ‘The Future Is Analog’ based on evidence gathered during that bizarre period that almost nothing worked better in digital; not work, not school, not religion, not relationships, not culture.
Digital is not a replacement for analog, or vice versa, they are both options and we are free to choose either. I have a Spotify account and a Kindle tablet and I am not writing this post on vellum with a quill but with a keyboard on screen. But for music that is not on Spotify I have vinyl, dug out of crates or recommended by collectors I have met all over the world. And I have books, given as gifts with little inscriptions and filled with marginalia that my daughter can easily discover by simply looking around our living room.
Segments of Gen Z it seems are becoming overwhelmed with the infinite abundance of digital and it's ephemeral nature - bits and bytes just don't have enough substance so they are turning back to the tech of my youth, not only because it is more substantial but also more sustainable and less expensive too.