#-soda

    Most days the average person in the United States consumes anywhere from five to eight hours of media. This includes literature, shortform content, music, etc. When we spend this much time consuming such things we should obviously consider the most useful options in obtaining it. In our modern world we have streaming services for everything, even books, making it a very accessible and widespread amongst most. Physical media can take up lots of space, cost more upfront, and even be ruined faster. Obviously streaming services are better, from convenience to quality they win first place! Or do they?

    While streaming gives the illusion of quality and quantity for a low price and minimal space, it doesn't exactly tell you the truth. Not only are prices rising faster than ever before, they rise without your knowledge. Considering the average streaming platform has autopay you likely won't ever realize you're paying double the original price until it's taken a heavy toll on your budget. On top of that you're probably experiencing this with multiple platforms since one streaming service never seems to have it all. No matter how many times you try it simply won't work without internet, yet another obstacle. Movies, shows, music, and books can even be pulled from their platform without you ever having a say in it. You have virtually no control over the way it functions and what it contains. It is always up to the company as to how the platform continues to function. Whether that be requiring two subscriptions for one streaming service or continued worsening of usability, it's all fair game for them. In the end you're left out of control and out of options, some may be better than others but most of the platforms work the same poor way.

      Physical media is hard to find sometimes, even being so scarce that you make it yourself. Physical media requires many different devices and conditions that aren't common anymore. From car radios no longer having a cd player, to your friends never owning a gamecard, physical media has decreased in popularity ever since ipods came out. Protective cases for all most types of physical media take up tons of space. Without protective casing you risk damaging your copy of the media, ranging from a small scratch on a cd to a warped vinyl. Though there are some very redeemable qualities in the realm of physical media, unlike streaming services you pay once for each copy you buy (or you get it for free, depending on how you feel about piracy) and you always know exactly how much you're paying. Theres never a day where a company can take your physical copy from your shelf, it's always there, even it becomes truly lost media for everyone else. On the contrary to the streaming services that have unskippable ads, physical media has little to none, and what it may have are easily skippable. To build upon the advertisements, if you don't support the ad you're watching you only contribute to the company once when you bought that copy instead of constantly being subjected to things you dont support, unwillingly paying their bills by watching. In conclusion to the basics of physical media, while it can be difficult it does give you more control over your experience.  

      It seems a battle between the two forms of media collection wouldn't do anything as they both have strengths and weaknesses. The way you consume media isn't a question of morality in a general sense, though if you look closer it has more to it. Rates of lost media have increased over the years and continue to get higher and higher with the lack of physical media. While collecting physical copies of your favorite movies and books has slowly came back to the publics attention it is crucial we decrease our streaming and increase finding. Lost media, as silly as it seems, can warp the way we view history. Even works of fiction can easily help display the societal issues being faced at the time it was made, if we lose any strings connecting us to the past we've likely lost an important piece to understanding a certain time period and if we are repeating that history.

       To expand on lost media it would be a complete injustice to not think about some of the most important pieces of "media" we cannot lose, nonfiction, fact, truth. As we throw away our library cards and  toss out our old books we're missing out on something important, knowledge. Historically, withholding knowledge has been used to control towns, armies, and empires. When we forget our knowledge is what can keep us from falling into a mindless belief system we lose everything. On May 10, 1933 university students began the Nazi book burnings, soon every school was a house of propaganda brainwashing children into nazi ideology. In medieval times catholic priests were the only ones allowed a copy of the bible, even forcing peasants into illiteracy to be sure they wouldn't read the text for themselves, creating a cult-like heirarchy that has mislead countless christians. Why are those incidents important to this conversation? Because lost media means lost history, means lost awareness, means consuming only content that you already understand. Pushing yourself to learn and care about having new knowledge is so important. No, losing that obscure horror novel won't cause a downfall, but what will is when you quit trying to gain and keep knowledge. Along with this comes AI, who cares what media is lost when you can create infinitely more content with the touch of a button? Why should you read articles when AI shortens all of them for you? Why care about how much you know when AI can always educate you in an attention span friendly manner? Slowly, everyday, we're learning to depend on things that are unreliable, the first step to defeating that mindset is just stepping out of your comfort zone to learn, stop using AI to think and create for you, stop letting big companies police what you see and hear. Propaganda thrives in every big company, I can guarantee they support things you despise. Don't let a false sense of quality win you over, decrease streaming increase finding. An argument can be made that physical media is harder to find but that is all the more reason to have it. Utilize your communities library, make your own copies, do whatever you can to fight the loss of media, and most importantly, loss of history. 

       A literacy crisis is sweeping our nations children and young adults. They cannot read, they cannot write, and they cannot comprehend. Their attention spans have been rampaged, parents don't do anything to stop this. Every moment of their lives spent on screens, online. It is not an argument to say being online is ineherently harmful to us, but its the excessive amount that is dangerous. To resist this, I urge you to keep physical copies of books, to keep long-form content your main consumption, and to stop supporting the people and corporations that do not care about what this could mean for us. Fight to have reality in front of you, not just around you. Preserve current events, learn more than ever before, and turn away from advertisers, businesses, and people that profit off your refusal to use the physical things that could save you from being misinformed and forced into a set of beliefs you never wanted to believe. It is so much easier to irradicate online sources and online copies of anything. Stop being complacent in everything being a corrupt corporations click away from never existing again. Nothing is more important than you standing strong in what you believe in, being able to defend it so you never fall into the trap of mindless believer. Literacy is your best friend, and knowledge is how you get there, consume your knowledge ethically and you may change your life.