We’re living in the digital age. Basically our whole lives are stored on hard drives, coded as zeroes and ones. Our bank accounts are numbers on a screen, and our work practically never makes it into the physical realm (so is the life of a blogger).
But you know what? I wouldn’t change it for a thing. I can’t think of a way that I’d rather do my work, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to writing everything with a pen on paper. I know that Southtree wouldn’t like that either. My handwriting is abysmal.
With my horrible penmanship in mind, these are 12 reasons why digital kicks the pants off of analog any day of the week.
Easy Accessibility
Most pictures, slides, and home movies are stored in boxes, which are stashed away in seldom trafficked closets. With digital media, your memories are only a couple of clicks away!
Share Instantly
Facebook and Instagram have commoditized the value of sharing your home movies and photos in the form of likes. You can’t get likes on a physical pictures. I guess that would just be tally marks on the back per smile? Not sure.
Send Anywhere for Free
Packing stuff up and putting it in the mailbox is expensive. It’s also a little bit precarious. Who knows whether that letter with your only copy of Gram Gram’s favorite picture will make it to its destination. You can send digital photos and videos free, anywhere, anytime!
No Physical Storage Necessary
Remember that closet we were talking about? You can fill it with skiing stuff and board games instead if you get your memories digitized!
Depend on the Cloud!
The cloud is everywhere. Whether you like it or not, it’s our new world. The cloud is awesome, because it allows you to access your stuff anywhere you want, on whatever computer you want. That’s awesome.
Not Susceptible to Damage
Digital backups are mostly indestructible, outside of mass EMP, earth-ending solar flares, or instant reversion to the paleolithic era. If that happens, we have bigger problems than losing a couple of photos.
Digital Backups Last Forever (Kind of)
A big benefit of getting digital backups is that they’ll mostly last for forever. Since digital stuff is just a huge sequence of ones and zeroes, there’s fewer ways to corrupt it, than, say, an accidental juice spill on your favorite picture of your hubby from high school.
It’s Green
Plastic isn’t good for the environment, and physical pictures are developed in some pretty nasty chemicals. You can save the environment by getting your memories digitized and recycled!
No Fading, Scratches, or Snips
Another bad side of pictures and home movies is that they can get scratched, smudged, and otherwise torn apart. Don’t worry about that with your digital copies!
Mass Compatibility
Modern technology is amazing. You can get a Google account, upload pictures to it from your phone, check them out on your tablet, then email them from your computer. Cross-device compatibility is awesome.
Less Risky
Not getting digital backups is basically rolling the dice on nothing bad happening to your stuff. I’m not sure if you’ve been watching the news lately, but we’ve had tornadoes, hurricanes, snow storms, and earthquakes just this week.
Bye Bye Obsolescence
When’s the last time you used your VCR. Are you sure it even works? Me neither. Say goodbye to obsolescence when you digitize. Computers have been using JPEG for forever, and they probably always will.
If you couldn’t tell from the list, I’m pretty convinced that digital media is always better than analog. Paintings and sculptures are the only things that are exempt from my benefits list, although, I think it’s still smart to have digital backups of those too.
Long live the digital age!
