Irreplaceable:
Old-School Media
and Millennials
Newer isn’t necessarily better in the digital age. Just ask the youngsters rediscovering retro technology like typewriters, record players and books.
By Leila Roos
Long ago, Paul Schweitzer’s competition took up six pages in the Manhattan phonebook. Only a handful of typewriter stores would stay open as offices and homes phased in computers and printers. The Gramercy Typewriting Company — which now provides mostly printer repair — is one of them.
Schweitzer did retain some longtime clients — elderly people who didn’t want to change with the times. But he never thought he’d see the day that 20-somethings would start coming into his Flatiron workroom.
“A lot of the young people would like to be writers and poets,” Schweitzer said. “They look to people like Hemingway typing on those old Underwoods and Royals, and they think it would be very nice to give it a try.”
Though these newcomers’ initial interest may be romantic, they have practical reasons as well. As Schweitzer explains, “They like to see their thoughts hit the paper as they’re thinking them, and they like that there’s less distraction so they can just concentrate on what they’re thinking.”
There’s an art to concentration in the age of connectedness. All-in-one devices bring together instant information and social media, while offering new ways of doing old things, such as writing, reading and listening to music.
Millennials — the generation who came of age around the year 2000 — grew up amid rapidly changing technology. In a 2014 Nielsen consumer report, almost a quarter of 18- to 36-year-olds said “technology use” is what makes their generation unique.
“Millennials have a more positive view of how technology is affecting their lives than any other generation,” the report reads. “More than 74 percent feel that new technology makes their lives easier.”
Nevertheless, some Millennials resist the constant updates, and others are rediscovering older media. Cultural nostalgia sparks an interest in things we didn’t know first-hand, with the just out-of-date becoming retro chic. But there’s also a truer appreciation based less in trend than timeless reasons.
Reading, writing and listening to music are all deeply personal experiences that can create a bond with the medium.
Once restored, the typewriters at Gramercy — ranging from colorful plastics to big black antiques — can go on forever. A relationship is formed as a creative process is established. That has no comparison for those coming from the new and improved world of ever faster and thinner laptops.
The digital format has some shortcomings for music as well. Unlike digital, listening to vinyl requires presence and interaction. It also provides a superior sound, which ensured the old style of recording would last, even as LP pressing plants were closing down. In the last few years record labels have reopened their plants to provide for a new generation of vinyl consumers.
The oldest medium of all — books — never even went niche. The convenience and sleekness of eReaders was expected to appeal to the digital generation. Nevertheless, young people remain loyal to books, as a Voxburner survey found last year. Sixty-two percent of the 1,420 young adults polled said they preferred print to digital. They want an emotional connection, to touch and smell the pages, and to fill up their bookshelves.
Personal copies of books — received as gifts, signed by the author, written in, passed down and personalized — are irreplaceable. Irreplaceability is incongruous with the mentality of trading up for the next model.
But not all devices can — or should — be all-in-one. There’s enough space on the desk for a laptop and a typewriter. Music can be heard on vinyl at home and earbuds on the run. An eReader can be kept alongside a personal library — or not. Millennials are, after all, unique in their use of technology.
