The enduring power of touch in a digital age
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Key topics:
Touch is essential to human development and how we experience the world.
Minimal digital interfaces reduce tactile interaction with technology.
Gen Z revives vinyl, CDs, and film for tangible, sensory connection.
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By Sean Buch
Touch is our earliest sense and the first to mature. Babies respond to their mother’s touch in utero, and twins in the womb attempt to reach out to each other. Once born, babies learn about their surroundings through touch, often picking up an item their parents would prefer they didn’t. In psychology, touch is central to attachment theory, whereby physical contact drives healthy psychological and physical development. Touch gives important sensory feedback, along with sight, smell, taste and hearing, allowing us to engage with the world around us. If touch is so central to our experience, why do technology companies continue to attempt to remove touch from our digital experience?
Imagine if you couldn’t touch the world around you. How different would your experience be? Vital sensory feedback would be lost, and we would be left disconnected from our surroundings. Unfortunately, some suffer from somatosensory impairment, which affects the skin’s processing of physical sensations. This condition impacts daily functioning and a safe interaction with one’s world, which often leads to nerve damage and injury. When one explores touch and its importance, living without it seems inconceivable. Then, as technology moves towards touchless interfaces driven by voice and gestures, it would make sense that some would seek out more tactile interactions with older technology that can be held, clicked, pressed and turned.
Technology requires less human touch as AI takes on more tasks previously required by human beings. However, it wasn’t always this way. In prehistoric times, we were intrinsically linked to means of production and consumption through touch. If an early human needed a tool, like a flint axe, they would pick up a flint rock and begin chipping away. If clothing were required, a person would expertly skin an animal to create leather. With handmade bone needles, they would stitch a garment.
Fast-forward a few thousand years, and artisans who specialised in producing certain goods began to appear. If you needed a pot, you wouldn’t create one with your hands, touching and feeling the clay; you would go to a potter. If you required a tool, you wouldn’t bang away at heated steel; you would go to a blacksmith. Today, you can take photos without putting film in a camera and play music without inserting a cassette or CD. Various tools are available on a slick glass interface where minimal physical interaction is required. We are entirely removed from the means of production, and consumption is easier than ever before.
While interfaces have become more minimalistic, there was a point in personal computing, begun by Xerox PARC in the 1970s, when interfaces strove to replicate the physical world in what became known as skeuomorphic design, some of which has persisted in modern-day computing. Users required the emulation of objects that could be touched to understand this new graphical user interface (GUI). While touch was limited to a mouse click, interfaces used graphics to draw on tactile memory. This included files, folders, notepads and trash bins. We required an interim stage to transition from our physical desk with its real-world objects to the digital desktop.
For the most part, smartphone interfaces have done away with those replicating the real world, but it wasn’t always so. Early iPhones strove to replicate the materials and textures of the physical world. Note pads were designed to look like stitched leather, and the voice recorder looked just like a studio microphone. Dials, buttons and switches were designed to be interacted with much like one was touching the real thing. In 2013, Apple released iOS 7, which embraced flat, minimal design, much to the dismay of users, but was eventually accepted, and skeuomorphic design became a relic of the past. While this abstraction into more minimal interfaces has persisted, some Gen Zs continue to collect old technology as they seek to connect with an analogue past filled with touch and physical feedback. According to Luminate Data (previously MRC Data), which provides data on the music industry, Gen Z are more likely to buy vinyl than their Millennial counterparts. Vinyl and CD sales are steadily increasing, attributed to Gen Z. The ability to touch and hold a physical copy of their favourite artist’s music creates a more profound connection.
“They’re my children”, says a passionate YouTuber, SimplyLillie, referring to her vinyl collection. Her words underpin a connection to her records that digital platforms like Spotify or Apple Music cannot replicate. Lillie is passionate and has knowledge and understanding of vinyl records and the work involved in their production. She proudly displays her peach pressing of Ariana Grande’s Sweetener and the red and black splatter pressing from Louis Tomilson’s Faith in the Future. The collectability and value of these items are down to fine details like a signature, unique pressing or limited edition. While Lillie could easily listen to Grande or Tomilson, owning something she can touch means more to her than a stream of a few bits of data on a server somewhere.
When referring to a Wham! Christmas album Lillie bought for $120, she boldly states that she justifies her purchases because they are “collector’s pieces” and “make [her] happy”. These two simple phrases hold a deeper meaning. Collecting objects still appeals to young people in an increasing age of non-physical production and consumption. It’s common for older generations to dismiss Gen Z culture as ephemeral, lasting as long as a TikTok video. Indeed, growing up in an age of scrolling, Gen Z is challenged to find permanence. A vinyl record gives a sense of permanence and continuity in an everchanging world.
When listening to YouTuber Geraldine HiFi, you can hear her pleasure and sense of accomplishment in finding forty CDs at one dollar each at a local sale. She proudly displays the cover art and songs included in the various albums, touching each part of the CD. She carefully opens a box, removes a CD booklet, unfolds its pages and finally displays the CD. This tactile experience brings satisfaction and connection to each artist.
CDs are an increasingly popular choice over vinyl for young collectors due to their lower price point. They still provide collectors with a tactile experience, a sense of ownership, and a high-quality sound. As an extension of physical music, young collectors are buying old technology to play their collections. Geraldine has videos dedicated to the environment she created for listening to her music and can touch and feel each piece of technology. She flips switches, turns dials, and presses buttons, producing a satisfying sound and physical feedback unavailable on a phone or laptop.
Collecting old technology is not restricted to music. Film cameras have grown in popularity and offer a range of tactile experiences, including flipping open the camera to place film inside, cocking the shutter, turning dials for focus or exposure and then eventually pressing down for a satisfying click as a photo is taken. Digital cameras combine and reduce these actions to the point where one does not do more than click and shoot. However, something is missing in this process that draws young collectors to purchase these analogue devices.
Teo Crawford is a YouTuber with a passion for film photography. We hear and see a montage of satisfying clicks, dials, timers and shutters, immediately conveying the tactile nature of the cameras. Each camera is presented as a meaningful object held and displayed from all angles as it is manipulated. This is reminiscent of Geraldine showcasing her CDs. The other important aspect of print photography is that one can be involved in producing the image, utilising trays and chemicals, bringing one closer to the physical aspects of film photography.
Touch is vital to our sensory experience and engagement with the world. Reducing the tactile experience of technology loses something. We rely on tactility to feel connected to our world. While technology companies attempt to replicate tactile experiences through haptic feedback, it is far from touch in the physical world, which excites and delights us, creating lasting memories and connections. As technology moves away from real-world experiences and physical products, we will see younger generations resisting this change through their purchases. With Gen Zs like Lillie, Geraldine and Teo, and Gen Alpha likely to follow suit, we’ll see the continuation of vinyl, CD and film purchases for years to come.