Experiment 1 - Replacing Spotify with a CD Player & a Radio (Series)

Read the introduction to this series here.

As I wrote in my previous post, I wanted to challenge myself to replace my smartphone apps with the physical objects those apps replaced, hoping to loosen the grip that advertising, subscription fees, and easy reliance on my smartphone has on my life. I wanted to re-imagine my life, choosing the more difficult and cumbersome path in order to regain some self-reliance and control over what I focus on everyday.

This week, I replaced Spotify, podcasts, and *most* of my YouTube watching with a CD player and a radio. I LOVE using Spotify and have been a premium subscriber for years. It is a well-spent $5/month in my opinion but it does feed my need for instant gratification and pleasure because it allows me to search and find any song I want from its vast database within seconds. I even have Shazam synced to my Spotify account so I can find almost any song that’s playing in my environment and save it for listening later on. That level of convenience and choice at my fingertips is amazing and was difficult to give up.

When I began this experiment, I was bolstered by the fact that choosing to use a CD player with plastic CDs meant that I had a more physical attachment to my music and felt like more of an owner rather than a subscriber. If I choose to no longer pay for Spotify, I lose access to “my” music in an instant. As with many digital subscriptions, once we no longer pay, we no longer own that product. I remember using Adobe CS6 and loving that once I downloaded the software, I always owned it. With Adobe CC, I gain the benefit of an updated product that I can access from anywhere — but I pay a monthly fee and if I decide to stop paying it, I lose access to the whole suite.

While very convenient, this way of accessing digital material doesn’t feel like a very stable or secure form of ownership. I feel that I must give up my power/agency in exchange for convenience and to have the latest and greatest. Ready to test my willpower, I went to the ARC Thrift Store nearest me and bought a Memorex CD player, blank and used CDs (got a Colbie Caillat one, feels like high school!), a Sony Walkman radio, and was on my way to music freedom and much less time spent on my smartphone!

I wanted to try uploading recap videos documenting each week of my experiment instead of writing lengthy posts — let me know what you think :)