My Record Player

I recently inherited a record player from my great grandfather. I also received his entire record collection which has not been touched for a while. In Henry Jenkins Convergence Culture reading he talked about how the media itself doesn't change just the device it is displayed through. Music has been around for a long time. How people have listened to it is the only thing that has changed within the music industry. Having a record player is unique but their is a lot of work that goes into playing music on a record player. I have to clean the records since they are dusty because I don't want to ruin the needle that plays the records because it is very expensive to replace. After the record is over you have to take it out and replace it. When I listen to my music on my iPod or phone it is so easy. I can skip songs, I can pull whatever song I want on, and it only takes me a few seconds.  Technology is nice but I definitely listen to a lot more music than my great grandfather did.

Here is the first ever iPod commercial from 2001:

It is crazy to think that we once didn't have iPods and we only had record players to listen to music. The "black box" that Jenkins talks about is very much real. The Apple Tv has everything combined into one. I recently watched the Apple Tv commercial and it made me think about how we as a society are so consumed with media and technology that we don't really live. We only live through social media and electronics. And the "black box" isn't freeing us from all the inconvenience of having too many devices its trapping us into spending a lot of time with just one device.