Along the same line...

The landline phone is making a comeback and your brain will thank you

The kids are going analogue.

https://mashable.com/article/landline-phone-brain-rot

"..But just as the landline becomes endangered, a wave of young people have discovered it.."

Maybe Gen Z is finding out that its good to actually have physical possession of a song or album. Records, tapes, CDs whatever, and not having to pay subscriptions for apps and streaming for their music. I Like the landlines coming back. 

Maybe some Gen Zers should also rediscover that music used to be made with real people and real instruments not machines and auto tune. 

Yup, could there be some hope for current generations.

But this article was in the UK, what about here? And how can they afford the rip off prices for the cassettes?

Posted by: @mark

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.... I Like the landlines coming back. .... ..

But this article was in the UK, what about here? And how can they afford the rip off prices for the cassettes?

Yeah Gen Z'ers is what's brought back LP records as well, even reel to reels I guess. I don't know how much that reflects here, the UK article was the only one I read, it was just something that came up on the Google Discover page.

As for the landlines coming back, that's not exactly literal. "Landlines" for the most part in this article is about spending less time glued to our phones. It's interesting and well written, in that it's not boring I guess. Here's a couple excerpts.

" Catherine Goetze is an AI educator and online creator (she's better known online as @askcatgpt). Goetze has designed a landline phone called Physical Phone that connects to your smartphone, so you can take calls via your device without picking it up. The video she posted on Instagram sharing the concept has over 2 million views and even though the phone hasn't launched yet, the brand's Instagram account has over 38,000 followers. ... ...

According to Dr. Ysabel Gerrard, a senior lecturer in digital communication at the University of Sheffield, it's predictable that people are looking to the past to find solutions for modern problems. "Nostalgia often operates in 20 to 30 year cycles, so it's really normal that people are going back to things like landlines or other wired technologies," Gerrard explains. ...

LIFE magazine shared a photo story from 1956 about "phone-obsessed teens", in which they're using the same retro landlines that are now posed as a solution to brain rot caused by excessive screen time. ....

"It's not coincidental that the term "doomscrolling" entered the cultural lexicon during the pandemic ..

"If young people stopped using smartphones and started using landlines, they would experience their relationships and identity differently," she says. "But that doesn't mean your life would be any better or worse. A lot of the time people find solace in online spaces because they offer them identities and cultures and communities that they don't otherwise have access to." ..... ..

Full article: The landline phone is making a comeback and your brain will thank you  https://mashable.com/article/landline-phone-brain-rot

For a while, I was into purchasing cassettes, as I could usually get them for next to nothing at thrift shops.

The problem with them, however, is that they degrade far faster than most other physical media.  A good portion of them had warbling and other issues.  And it's not as if you can do a physical inspection and tell, like you can with records and even CD's.

And bring them near to anything magnetic (quite common these days) - they're toast.

I decided to put my collecting efforts into 45's.

@artisan-radio Ditto that from me, I used to have cassette tapes coming out the yin-yang (whatever that is), so many didn't know where to put them, They'd curl, stretch, twist, jam, break, and when they did - not only with cassettes, but with reel-to-reel tapes, and 16mm film too, I almost always just used scotch tape for splicing, because breaks were so common it didn't make sense to pay for the pricey splice tape. 

I also was an avid shopper for 45s during the 1990s when I used to have a diner that had an old 45 jukebox. They became unavailable after the cd jukeboxes came out, they quit manufacturing 45s, so my only option was used ones from a place called Graveyard Records and Tapes in Savannah, eBay wasn't around yet.

There are record stores in Toronto that have 45s, thousands of them new and used. Mostly from the 50s to 70s rock and roll along with albums. A few hi fi shops have vinyl also since they sell turntables.
I had a collection of several hundred acquired over time in the 60s 70s along with collections albums and when I converted them all to digital....CDs and then MP3s on a machine I rented from Long and Mcquade that played the record and did the conversion simultaneously. I then took boxes full of the records to a place that buys vinyl and that was it for the records. Didn't need them anymore. Half my playlist is from my own record collection. 
A while back I asked at a hi fi shop near me...who buys records?, and he told me you'd be surprised. A 16 year old girl with her parents just bought a turntable and 3 Beatle albums!
Yes! I like hearing that. Seems some Gen Zers are rediscovering records turntables and integrated amps.

@mark Earlier you indicated how having physical media has its advantages.Your converting your record collection to digital also has its advantages; space savings, simplifies categorizing and accessibility to your song library, click-and-serve up any song in seconds, and portability enables the ability to carry and even play a library of thousands of songs and albums anywhere you go on a device the size of your fingernail. 

To a much lesser degree that was the advantage of cassette tapes, although they had been about the worst music storage option available it proved to be the most popular until CDs came out.. for the same reason, you could take and play your music library anywhere, driving, walking, biking, anywhere. You couldn't do that with record albums.

But something LP records provided that you didn't get from cassettes, cd or present day virtual digital music storage - and I'm sure you remember this - the charm of the album covers and inserts itself... Which I guess sounds a little silly, but I remember exploring the packaging itself, cover art, lyrics, band pictures, sometimes even the art on the inner sleeves or whatever. The album covers were in some ways just as valuable and thrilling as listening to it.

Remember when we had photo albums? You hardly see them anymore, now we take more digital pictures in a week and store away on our phones and PC and in the cloud... So many that we could never even look through them all, and they're not magical snapshots from time anymore, there just an unmanageable drone of images that dilute each other.

Not sure what I'm saying! 

@richpowers Back then to be portable I had a radio. I figure I still have physical copies of everything just in a different way. If I didn't convert to digital storage I wouldn't be able to do the hobby that we do all automated. And you have it forever without degrading. I still listen on a radio, plus all those records in boxes at 30-40 lbs each! Space for this also. I agree with you about the cover designs. But home hi fi is good and what was noted about that 16 year old girl is she bought Beatle albums, not just rediscovering records.

Other 'hard' formats that I miss.  I've owned every one, and tried most.

DAT tapes.  Great sound, using PCM digital.  They used better tape than ordinary cassettes (I think that the bottom of the barrel of the discount bins were scoured to get the tape used to make most of the analog cassettes) and error checking if there were blips.

HiFi Beta.  Although not used for commercial audio releases, Beta was a much superior medium and format than VHS HiFi, and you could record up to 4 1/2 hours audio reliably.

CD-3 (CD singles).  8cm (roughly 3 inch) CD's, capable of holding up to 4 songs usually.  I bought a ton of them when they were discontinued and heavily discounted.  Rhino put out a series of oldies that are fairly common, but I sold off a lot of the rest of mine for a lot more than I paid at one point.  Still have some, though.

Minidiscs.  Essentially CD-3's with lossy encoding (Sony's ATRAC) so that you could get more songs on them.

And going way back, you have 78's.  Easy to break with the shellac they used, but decent sound if you can find one that doesn't look like it was used for sand surfing.

Then there were the 45-sized (and sometimes 10 inch) vinyl recorded at lp speeds.  The ones I have were mainly used for classical recordings (prior to the lp).

Finally, you have the 10 inch Edison discs, and even cylinders (shellac and wax).

I'm not sure that you would include player piano music rolls in the mix, but I used to own a whole whack of them that I picked up in bulk at one point.  Unfortunately, I never had the player piano to hear them.

Addendum: Forgot reel to reel tapes, which were released with commercial music.

Thought this was a good article from ABC News..

Unpause and rewind: Cassette tapes are making a comeback
By Peter Hoar
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-07/cassette-tapes-are-making-a-comeback/106102136

Excerpts:

For a supposedly obsolete music format, audio cassette sales seem to be set on fast forward at the moment.

Cassettes are fragile, inconvenient, and relatively low-quality in terms of sound quality — yet we're increasingly seeing them issued by major artists. ....

A number of major artists, including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, the Weeknd, and Royel Otis, have all released material on cassette. .....

Why resurrect this clunky old technology when everything you could want is a languid tap away on your phone?

Analogue formats such as cassettes and vinyl are not prized for their sound, but for the tactility and sense of connection they provide. For some listeners, cassettes and LPs allow for a tangible connection with their favourite artist.

There is an old joke about vinyl records that people get into them for the expense and the inconvenience. The same could be said for cassette tapes: ......

Cassettes did (and still do) have the whiff of the rebel about them. As researcher Mike Glennon explains, they give consumers the power to customise and "reconfigure recorded sound, thus inserting themselves into the production process". ......

Unsurprisingly, the recording industry saw cassettes and home taping as a threat to its copyright-based income and struck back. In 1981, ... But the campaign's somewhat pompous tone led to it being mercilessly mocked and largely ignored by the public. ...

The idea of the blank cassette as both a symbol of self-expression and freedom from corporate control continues to persist.  ...

Cassettes will not replace streaming services anytime soon, but that is not the point. What they offer is a way of listening that goes against the grain of the digital hegemony we find ourselves in. That is, until the tape snaps.

Peter Hoar is a senior lecturer at the School of Communications Studies, Auckland University of Technology. This piece first appeared on The Conversation.

The full article is better. Read full article: Unpause and rewind: Cassette tapes are making a comeback
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-07/cassette-tapes-are-making-a-comeback/106102136