Photo by craigfinlay on Flickr
I don’t want to deride the many benefits of digital media, but I think it is worth spending a bit of time pointing to one particular aspect of physical media that is worth defending. A few months ago my grandmother passed away after a long and happy life. Included in the few things left behind in her small apartment was a rather extensive collection of photographs spanning 87 years. My grandmother was not known for her photographic skills, but she did keep pictures from many of the people and events she encountered. Written on the back of the photographs were some essential details–names, dates, and places–that provided us with a wonderful opportunity.
My family had to sort through all of these photographs and in doing so we benefited from the kinds of experiences that physical media are very adept at offering. Determining what to do with each photograph or album provided the opportunity for us to explore her memories, celebrate her life, learn about our family history, and revisit some of the things that were important to her. I have a hard time seeing how this would have been possible if the photos she had taken as a young person were stored only in digital form. Yes, the whole family would have had access to them and if I were to scan and post them now they would as well, but the process of sorting, sharing, and telling stories as a collaborative activity in the wake of her funeral would have been diminished. Maybe this is a testament to the scrapbooking movement, which creates physical media that will likely outlive its creators, but it is also an unintended use that provides an opening for some new ways of thinking about how we interact with photographs and other forms of media.
Sam Lander makes some useful points about how time is represented in analog vs digital. Among those points is her recollection of using a Filofax to keep her appointments and how the act of refilling the pages and entering appointments would provide an opportunity for reflection.
I would review last year’s appointments, marvel at how much I had gotten done and how fast time had passed. I would linger over favourite appointments, which seemed, at the time, inconsequential, as recorded in my scribbled hand.
What Sam points to, and what I hope my example also illustrates, is the importance of the physical-embodied aspects of the media we are quickly leaving behind. In many ways good designs already recognize that digital media exists inside of some physical object; form factor is certainly important to any new device. What physical media provides us with are opportunities to reflect, learn, and interact in ways that are not yet fully replicated in digital media. Let’s hope that they will be soon.
