If you’re anything like me, you created your dream career based on early 2000s romcoms. Personally, when I was a kid, I just knew I was going to be running around New York City working at a fabulous magazine à la Andy Sachs (The Devil Wears Prada), Andi Anderson (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), or Sidney Shaw (Brown Sugar). However, by the time I got to college, the media industry looked completely different from the one the fictional characters that I idolized worked in. Digital was king, print was dead and my dreams of being Carrie Bradshaw seemed dead; or so I thought.
In this modern age, it seems like the only thing that is constant is change, but as we well know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. After flipping through a stack of magazines whilst getting a pedicure, watching the resurgence of record collections, #Booktok and people turning to DVDs in the face of rising streaming costs, I couldn’t help but wonder… Do girls yearn for physical media again?
On the surface, collecting physical media in 2026 (records, DVDs, magazines, etc.) seemed on par with the retro trend that has the girls wearing low-rise jeans and baby tees again, but it is connected to something significantly deeper. According to the American Psychological Association, “Post-2020 attention spans have declined significantly due to increased digital reliance, with average focus on a single screen-based task falling to roughly 40–47 seconds. This rapid erosion is driven by pandemic-induced digital fatigue, the proliferation of short-form video, and constant notifications, leading to higher rates of task-switching.” Gen Z, who has a notoriously short attention span, is known for being extremely aware of and resistant to faux things. They prefer things that are real, down to earth and relatable, even if they are delivered to them in 30-second bites. They got tired of the overly curated algorithmic lifestyle that was perpetuated by Instagram and as a result, they overwhelmingly flocked to TikTok, which had a reputation for being “more authentic.”
This was only compounded by the effects of the pandemic, which launched us into complete digital overload. After COVID, we as a society realized how much we needed to hold not only someone but something for our own social growth, development and yes, attention spans. It started off with people being exhausted from the blurring of their personal and work space that came from having to work from home, giving rise to the yearning for third spaces like cafes, bookstores and malls.
From there, it was a conversation surrounding simply wanting something real, and suddenly, records were back. Physical books, bookstores and newsstands became much more popular than they were in the 2010s and recently, it came out that Gen Zers are the first generation since Baby Boomers to go to an actual movie theater to see a movie. Even as we move into an AI-dominated landscape, people are starting to overwhelmingly move from the digital to the physical. People even went as far as to create a trend called friction maxxing where they are using analog methods such as relying on road signs rather than a GPS app, reading a book rather than watching a YouTube video, or even using physical alarm clocks over their phones all in an effort to increase their attention span and connection with the world around them.
This trend is also connected to the rising literacy crisis that we see making its way through Gen Alpha and Gen Z. TikTok creator Horace Gold stressed the importance of reading physical books and learning things beyond social media after a commenter confused the homophones ‘petal’ and ‘pedal’ while talking about Ariana Grande’s upcoming album. Teachers everywhere are complaining that their students don’t know basic grammar rules and it’s largely attributed to the rising dependence on technology. There are videos online of students who cannot read words such as “cataclysmic,” “prolific,” “silhouette” and many other words that I, personally, remember learning before high school. All of this points back to one major point: there is a profound lack of media literacy, general literacy and critical thinking in our society today. While there isn’t one correct solution, the vast majority of it can be rectified by returning to a place that prioritizes physical media over digital.
It is paramount that we place an emphasis on finding sources that can’t be edited, changed or altered. As we battle a government who does things like defund the Department of Education and continually contribute to historical erasure, it is more important than ever that we continue to emphasize the necessity of unplugging and picking up a magazine or a book every once and a while. At its core, friction maxing is not just the “newest Gen Z trend.” It is how we reestablish foundational concepts that are quickly becoming a lost art with the younger generations. Things like putting words in alphabetical order, learning the structure of a fictional story or an essay, the difference between primary and secondary sources, decoding a math problem. All of these skills directly translate to activating critical thinking skills. These seemingly mundane things allow us to take a step back, sound things out and engage critically with content. They force us to ask ourselves “does this make sense?” “What is being asked of me here?” “What impact does the information being presented have in the grand scheme of things?” The ability to answer these questions is how we combat being taken advantage of by the proverbial powers that be and learn how to be self-sufficient adults.
In order to partake in the trend, read a physical book, learn a new word and look it up in a dictionary rather than depending on Google or AI to define it for you. Find a new way to enjoy your favorite album the way it was meant to be enjoyed, completely devoid of distractions so that you can fully understand the lyrics and the artistry that went into it. When you’re done, find the meaning, decode the lyrics and wonder what message the artist was trying to convey. Pop in a movie and analyze the characters, the themes being explored, etc. I’m not saying that we should live in a “phoneless Amish existence” as Lindsay Lohan says in Freaky Friday. We live in the 21st century so it is unrealistic to assume that we will go back to a digital-free existence. It’s also unrealistic to expect us to turn everything into an English class or media literacy lesson. It is okay to admit that some pieces of art are just meant for pure entertainment value. However, returning to physical media could allow people to connect with art and culture in a way that we haven’t seen since before the age of the internet. And who knows, you might just learn something and have fun while you’re doing it.
