Cutting Down on Your Screen Time? These Y2K Tech Products Are on Sale Right Now
When was the last time you pulled out a digital camera to capture a quick moment? Or flicked through your DVD collection to choose the night's feature presentation? Before our main modes of communication and entertainment were condensed into our smartphones, the tech we used at the turn of the millennium was clunky, lo-fi, and free of all Internet-connected capabilities. But as technology has become more streamlined and ubiquitous, it's also been proven that the mental health of many of its users has greatly suffered as a result. Reverting back to the dial-up era, Y2K tech may sound pretty outlandish at first, but, believe it or not, this trend is actually picking up steam.
As expected, Gen Z is leading the charge: According to The New York Times, self-described “Luddite” teens are ditching their iPhones for flip phones to enjoy the freedom away from social media's glare. Their hypier peers that still use TikTok are now buying 20-year-old digital cameras to document their aesthetic — the #digitalcamera topic on TikTok has 211.2 million views as of this writing. On the music side, The Guardian reports that audiophiles in their 20s and 30s are quitting streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music in favor of buying artists' MP3s, CDs, and cassettes on Bandcamp. And, it's hard to feel good about your Netflix habit, hearing the streaming giant's global head of television say to The New Yorker, "What is quality? What is good versus not? That’s all subjective. I just want to super-serve the audience.”
If you've been feeling nostalgic for a (technologically speaking) simpler time, but you parted with your own Y2K tech long ago, thinking there was no way you could ever miss having Hit Clips in your life, there's good news. Y2K tech like mp3 players, digital cameras, DVD players, boomboxes, and flip phones are still around and readily available, and they're even on sale!
If your New Year's resolution is to cut down on your screentime and wrest your focus back from the attention economy, these offline, Y2K tech devices offer a new — but still vaguely familiar — alternative to the endless scroll.
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