mmmelissa:

I would trade iPhones, video chatting, the internet— all of those technological privileges we have today to live in the 80s. I would give up the ease and convenience of Microsoft office for typewriters. Instead of a tumblr, I’d have a scrapbook or diary. I would without question give up being able to save a million images on my computer for polaroids and even disposable cameras. I’d trade school pictures with someone and keep them in my wallet instead of having to look at their profile pictures on facebook. I’d gladly take vinyls or cassettes over mp3 files and mixed cds. I wouldn’t email someone a .zip file of an album, I’d burn them a cd or lend them a cassette. I see people reading slabs of plastic instead of old books with ruined spines. I want to go to the library, not visit google. Instead of saying hi over facebook, I’d write someone a letter or show up at their door. I’d have to go through the embarrassment of calling their house phone and asking their parents if I can speak to so and so. But that’s just so much more personal. I don’t know. Everything is so digitalized nowadays that I just want something tangible to treasure. Everything you think you have can disappear. If your hard drive crashes, then what? You have a collection of songs, stories, memories, books, pictures, conversations on a well designed piece of metal. What lives outside of your computer? What can you really keep? What are you going to show your future children, your tumblr? I want to dig out photographs from a shoebox and show them my handwritten letters, not my facebook profile from high school. I would love to go back in time and live simply. But it’s not practical to live that way anymore.