MP3 Memories: Permanence Over Practicality

Over the summer, I made a Spotify playlist, as I always do on long drives, to pass the time on the way to Yosemite. Looking through my saved songs, I remembered my old MP3 player — the little device I carried on every road trip and flight during middle school, filled with just a few dozen carefully selected tracks. There was a sense of permanency to the device and its playlist, as each song was something I had committed to uploading and keeping with me. While I appreciate the wider selection of music at my fingertips with Spotify, I miss how personal the selection in my MP3 player felt to me. I still feel a pang of nostalgia when I come across it stored away in a drawer, whereas I could delete my road trip playlist instantaneously, without a second thought.

The difference can be attributed to a phenomenon that psychologists call the endowment effect: we tend to value things more just because they are ours. In one well-known study by Richard Thaler, a theorist in behavioral economics, participants were given a mug, and when asked what price they would sell it for, demanded almost twice as much as those who were willing to buy it. Though the retail price of the mug was fixed, ownership made it more valuable. This same principle can be applied to our everyday lives — it feels much harder to give away a paperback book you’ve owned for years than to delete an e-book file that is downloadable in seconds. Ownership builds attachment, and attachment builds memory and identity.

If our identities are built around the things we hold onto and remember, what happens when we stop owning the things we consume? In the past, the media we consumed tended to physically own the media we consumed, but with the rise of subscription culture in the digital age, we now merely access it. Netflix subscriptions instead of box sets of DVDs. Kindle libraries instead of bookshelves. Countless Spotify playlists instead of stacks of custom-burned CDs. Subscriptions make things easier — more accessible and convenient — but they come with a cost: when media is so abundant and interchangeable, it also becomes insignificant. A Deloitte survey found that many consumers actually feel “subscription fatigue,” overwhelmed by the sheer number of services they juggle. This highlights a broader issue: the more replaceable something becomes, the less we care about it. While we once had to go through the process of finding and buying items, taking time to forge new connections to the physical objects, we can now hop between platforms instantaneously. If I delete my Spotify account, I can just switch to Apple Music; if I cancel my Netflix subscription, I can watch on Hulu instead. My MP3 player, however, wasn’t as disposable; it was a commitment that carried personal weight. I had chosen each song with care, going through the tedious affair of hunting them down online and dragging the files over to the device. The choices became tied to the trips and seasons of my life — memories that can’t be replicated by an easily replaceable Spotify playlist.

The consequences of this shift reach farther than just convenience — we are building a culture of disposability. The perceived value built from ownership and permanence is not applicable to the everflowing stream of media in the current day. The abundant nature of the things we now consume has reshaped how they connect with us and impact our identity. One aspect of this is that objects we own act as memory cues and time-capsules. A box of childhood books found in the garage, for example, would instantly transport me back to the second grade, but a folder of downloaded ebooks rarely sparks that kind of memory and nostalgia. Media itself used to also act as personal landmarks to moments in our lives, and while we still have certain obsessions, comfort shows, and favorite movies, streaming makes them feel untethered, whereas a physical object pins the moment down. When everything is so fluid and accessible at the same time, each piece of media holds less personal value, losing the power to impact us as much.

The lack of commitment reflected in subscription culture manifests itself in our recreations and relationships as well. Hobbies on social media often seem to be short-lived and abandoned as soon as they require commitment, not lasting long enough for people to build a real sense of attachment around them. The same pattern of a lack of commitment affects how we view social connections, too. When friends are perpetually reachable through a text, interactions feel less intentional and meaningful. I frequently end up messaging or calling my friends as a convenient alternative for meeting in-person, but I find much more value in the latter when it does happen. Because of the convenience of online interaction, however, real life meet-ups are far too often substituted. The sacrifice of commitment for convenience leads to an erosion of passion and meaning that seeps into every aspect of life.

I still make playlists for every trip I take, but none of them carry the weight of the MP3 player, as scuffed and outdated as it was. Though subscriptions aren’t inherently bad, they simply don’t build attachment and identity in the same way that tangible ownership does. Connection to something requires memories, effort, and care, and infinite access removes those responsibilities. Perhaps we need to hold on to some inconvenient practices — whether it be hand-writing a journal instead of typing, or brewing your own coffee rather than stopping at Starbucks — they may not be the most efficient or aesthetic, but as the world around us continues to speed up, it’s all the more important to stay grounded.

Scarlett Huang