Photo courtesy of BrokenSphere
According to trend predictors and social media users alike, 2026 will be the year of analog activities. Analog represents products that aren’t digital. For instance, instead of listening to music via an app on your phone, you could choose to use a record player, radio station or Sony Walkman (if you’re fancy like that).
With more of the population – especially younger people – waking up to the concerning amount of time they spend viewing screens, there’s been a growing need to find other ways to pass the time. If you find yourself thinking the same, then you’ve come to the right place. Join the Lutrinae staff as we share our favorite forms of physical media, and maybe even get inspired in the process.
Vinyl records
Revered in the music-loving community, vinyl records are more than a medium for music. The process of playing a record is fully immersive: unwrapping the vinyl, laying the record on the stand and hearing the satisfying scratch of the needle as the record starts to spin.
Staff Writer Daisy Sanchez shares a similar outlook. “I love music and I love the feeling of holding an album that I love in my hands and being able to look at the cover, I also love the little lyric sheets and art included by the artist inside the vinyl sleeve,” said Sanchez.
Scrapbooks
Scrapbooking: a lost art. What used to be a common hobby for younger and older people alike has been abandoned for heightened screentimes. Creating a scrapbook is a sentimental process from start to finish.
“There’s just something so amazing about making and looking through a scrapbook,” said Visual Editor Amanda Richman, “it allows you to tell a story through the way the pictures were placed.”
CDs
A fan-favorite in the newsroom, Staff Writer Jocelyn Corona enjoys the ease that comes with playing a CD, “CDs are a lot less expensive and require less maintenance compared to records, which makes me more comfortable with collecting.”
“CDs also encourage me to listen to an album entirely, which helps me find songs I wouldn’t have found shuffling a playlist,” said Corona.
Staff Writer and Columnist of Hayley’s Hot Takes Hayley Matto shares a similar outlook. “I drive an older Hummer, and it’s not smart enough to talk to my phone, so I still use CD’s. It’s super fun to toss my passengers my burger shaped CD holder and tell them to flick through it to find their favorite or one that just looks interesting.”
For inspiring collectors, Matto recommends Rasputin Music in Campbell at 1820 S Bascom Ave.
“There is something so satisfying about the sound of clicking plastic cases when rummaging through a collection. Can’t beat it!”
Books
As for Staff Writer and Columnist of the Reading Raft, it is no surprise Eli Heck has an affinity for the library.
“I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember, but beyond that I have always found a home within a library,” said Heck. “Surrounded by books, dusty pages, and hundreds of stories from different worlds. Something about collecting books or even just being around them has always made me feel at home.”
“Someday if I get to own a house, it’ll be a home once I have my own library.”
Next time you find yourself reaching for your phone or doomscrolling on the couch, I implore you to instead look through your space, pillage storage closets and brave dusty attics in search of analog activities.
Getting off your phone does not have to be an expensive expedition. In the Lutrinae’s upcoming column Otters Gone Analog, Staff Writer Hailey McConnell will dive deeper into the sentiment and share how to partake in the analog trend without having to consult TikTok Shop.