We are searching for our uniqueness and want to touch in the digital cultural world

The digital age came to us with a great promise. Music, movies, books, photos, games… We were going to be able to access the world's entire cultural heritage with a few touches. We would no longer need shelves, boxes, CDs, cassettes, or bookcases. But within this convenience, we lost ownership; all cultural services turned into rentals, subscriptions, and monthly bills. In the digital economy, culture has increasingly become a "service accessed" through platforms. Digitalization has changed the relationship of ownership in the cultural value chain.

But according to news from the US, the physical world is returning. Moreover, this return is not just about people's nostalgia for the past. According to 2025 data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), physical music revenues in the US increased by 5 percent compared to the previous year, reaching 1.38 billion dollars. Revenue from vinyl sales increased by 9.3 percent. The global picture is also interesting. According to the IFPI's 2026 Global Music Report, revenues from physical music products grew by 8 percent in 2025, reaching 5.3 billion dollars. Vinyl revenues increased by 13.7 percent, and vinyl recorded growth for the 19th consecutive year.

We see the same thing with books.

According to 2025 data from the Pew Research Center in the US, 64 percent of adults read a printed book in the last twelve months. The rate of those reading e-books remained at 31 percent, and the rate of those listening to audiobooks remained at 26 percent. In other words, despite the entire rise of digital formats, the printed book is still the book format used by the majority in the US.

Moreover, the role of younger generations here is also remarkable. BookTok is one of the interesting examples of this. According to a 2026 statement by TikTok based on Nielsen IQ Book Data and Media Control data, more than 50 million books discovered through BookTok were sold in just six major European book markets in 2025 alone, and these sales generated approximately 800 million euros in revenue. In Germany, more than 28 million books recommended on TikTok were sold in 2025. Therefore, on one hand, streaming continues to grow; on the other hand, physical formats are regaining value instead of disappearing. This seems like a contradiction. But it is not. While the way of discovering a book is becoming digital, the book itself is being purchased again as a physical object. In other words, young people are not escaping the digital world and returning to books. On the contrary, they reach the book by passing through the digital world. For this reason, explaining the return of the printed book as "nostalgia" would be incomplete.

Perhaps when listening to a record, we might want to create that ambiance, to feel the need to touch, see, and sense. Perhaps we want to see our fingerprints on the record, underline the lines in a book we find important, be able to write notes inside, fold the pages, and share it with someone else. We want to remember that period when it is opened again years later.

Another example is photography.

We can take hundreds of photos a day with a smartphone. The cost of taking a photo is almost zero. We delete the ones we don't like and take them again. Photos are stored in the cloud and transferred to another device when the phone is changed. Analog photography imposes the exact opposite of this.

Data from a YPulse study published in 2026 shows that approximately two-thirds of the 13-39 age group in the US and Canada use analog technologies; this includes physical formats such as records as well as film and instant cameras. In the evaluations citing the research, this trend is associated with digital fatigue and the search for more conscious screen usage.

The fact that the film is limited, that you have to think about every frame, that you cannot see the image you took immediately, and the possibility that the photo might turn out imperfect. There is time, effort, patience, care, and curiosity here. Could it be that it is becoming valuable precisely because of this? Perhaps the reason why the analog is becoming attractive again is not that the past was more beautiful. It is that today is too fast.

Digital files do not have a side that triggers emotions and lived experiences. It directs you to the most watched and most read through algorithmic visibility and recommendation systems. In an era where the individual is universally standardized in cultural consumption, perhaps people are searching for their uniqueness.

It is possible to see the same trend in board games, role-playing games, retro consoles, and gaming media. An academic study published in 2026 points out that board games have become one of the important examples of the "analog revival" debate; materiality, ritual, sociality, and the consumer's control over the experience stand out here.

There is also the dimension of control, ownership, and dependency. In the digital game economy, there is no need to go to a store to download a game as long as you pay the price. Updates come automatically. Your library is tied to your account. But your account is also tied to the platform. What will happen when the server shuts down, the license expires, a game is removed from the store, or the company no longer supports that product?

The entire advantage of the physical copy emerges here. Analog media allows you to build a small but independent archive of culture. You keep the book in your hand. The record sits on your shelf. Your CD works without being connected to the internet. A physical copy of a game is not dependent on what the company will do tomorrow. Of course, physical objects do not last forever either. A book can burn, a record can break, a CD can be damaged. Physical ownership is also not outside the market.

But the difference is important.

You have a right of disposal over an analog product. In digital content, you often have a right of access. For this reason, it is necessary to read the return to analog products and services in a slightly broader framework. This may be a search for balance that has developed against the excessive datafication and subscription fatigue created by digitalization, rather than a trend that rejects technology.

Because the digital economy gave us unlimited access. But at the same time, it increasingly tied culture to the infrastructure of platforms. Our digital library is often on a company's servers, and most of our music collection is part of a subscription. Movies and series have the platform's catalog. And the catalog can change constantly. A movie can be removed from the platform, a song can disappear due to licensing, a game can be removed from the store, and a digital book may no longer be available for purchase. The fundamental need here may be that a person does not want their relationship with culture to be entirely rented, is tired of bills and subscriptions; they want to archive, store, share, remember, put in effort and time, be curious, and see the possibilities. Or, in the abundance of content, we want to know that the cultural product and service we like will not disappear when a company's business and product strategy changes tomorrow. As a result, no matter how much the cultural environment digitizes, in the end, humans are looking for a tangible, feelable, memorable, and shareable equivalent of the cultural bond between them and the world.