Radio isn’t dead
Various devices are coming and going but a good old radio has been almost always with us and it doesn't look as it’s about to disappear.
We're on lockdown. Social distancing forced us to run our lives totally in and from home. We may be walking from room to room and there's a big chance that there's something in the background. The radio is a universal companion which can present us the latest news or a nice positive song, and we don't need to ask it for that, it’s just there and it’s talking.
Designed to entertain and inform
In contrary to most of the information and entertainment channels online, with the radio, you don't need to do anything apart from switching it on. You don't need your phone and there’s no need to install an app (although it’s possible). There are no cookies you need to agree on, no prompt to prove you're listening (hello youtube!) no extra pop-ups coming up. It doesn't want anything from you. It’s so unusual in modern world.
The only annoying things may be jingles which when get into our head may not leave it for next few hours… but it all depends on the radio we’re listening to.
We also don' need to worry about the quality of our wifi so much (streaming on Sunday evening?).
We can use it hand free, no need for any action every 20-40 minutes (what is the reason why my vinyl player is bit dusty now) and still we can enjoy quite versatile music balanced with some talking and keeping us up to date and closer to reality with hourly news.
And you know what? If you use a classic corded radio there’s no need to worry about the battery life!
Home (alone?)
Radio is the first thing which I turn on in the morning. Of course, I scroll through news but it’s quite often one big mess. The chaos of news websites, social media, news apps is taking me out of balance what is not the best thing in the morning. Radio gives me a level of security. Things they are saying in the news need to be properly fact-checked and if it’s a local radio I know what is happening in my area...
Audio is enough
Limiting the perception of a medium to one sense is great for the person on the receiving side. In the radio, they rely on your hearing. It’s not the same with telly where you’re missing a lot just listening without watching.
Radio presenters can't manipulate facts too much with graphic tricks (hello Fox news and Coroanvirus death rate graph) they can't deceive your perception faking things, or at least not as much as with visual mediums.
What else? Most of the talking is live so you can be surprised every now and then or even inspired. The topic of yesterday’s evening programme on BBC Bristol were human and animal bladers and I need to admit I’ve learned quite a lot. It’s not something I would tune myself in intentionally but the radio was on and this information just reached my ears while I was reading and napping (hey it's Sunday!).
Radio can help us discover things which normally we wouldn’t come across. It’s not biased towards our liking as many portals and apps limiting suggested tracks or programmes to these very similar to our previous listened topics and tracks. Of course, we make a choice of our favourite radio station, but we’re not bound to it. We can choose the station and the versatility of music and news it can provide gives us still wider choice than limited app recommendation.
What is the radio in the XXI century?
Radio can be our best friend, the one which forgives when we don’t listen. It these crazy times it can let us dream in the rhythm of the music and be a reality-check anchor with hourly news. It’s there and it will always be there until we have power (or spare batteries).
Radio let our eyes to travel, ears to engage and brain to relax.
Thanks for reading my 33rd post from My 52 problems series.
As Medium allows only 25 posts on publication page few of my posts are missing, but this week I’ll try to create a featured post with the list of all posts from my 52 series.
