The Psychological Importance of Physical Media

Humans would have evolved with an investment-reward balance system, where the investment is effort, time, or risk to safety. A primitive human would not have trekked 100 miles through dangerous terrain to acquire one raspberry, because they sought a balance between effort and reward. If you were to put a lot of effort into something, it better be important and grant an equivalent or greater reward. This is why we typically only put lots of effort into important things. (This is "motivational salience".) I've been thinking that maybe this system has the side effect of being a salience indicator: if we put a lot of effort into a task, this may indicate to our subconscious that the task must be important -- otherwise, why would we have put effort into it? And conversely, the less effort we put in, the less important the task seems.

How important something is to our subconscious can be illustrated best by examining memory, because your brain remembers things it finds salient and discards things that seem unimportant. For example, as social media content grows more and more convenient to scroll through, requiring less and less effort to access, we seem to also be recalling less and less of what we consume. This is likely caused by numerous factors, one of which may be that the low effort we put into the activity indicates to our brains that the activity is of low importance, and thus doesn't need to be remembered.

In an opposite example, I seem to have the best results in studying when I put in lots of effort, effortfully ignoring distractions in my environment and combating boredom. It feels a bit like resistance training as I strain against opposition to keep focused. I believe the effort spent to conquer that resistance may act as a salience indicator, pointing out that the activity is important, and seeing the activity as salient helps me recall its contents in the future. Why would I put so much effort into something if it wasn't important (and thus, worth remembering)?

I believe this may partially explain the appeal of physical media, because physical media requires more effort than digital media. It takes effort to retrieve a disc and slot it into a machine for viewing/playing; it is inconvenient to hold a paper book open with two hands, and strain to read the words that are covered in shadow due to the imperfect lighting in your space. The effort we spend using physical media may indicate salience of the media to our brains.

I believe this perception of salience may make the media more enjoyable. We enjoy doing things that we feel are important. This may explain the common thought that completing a print book provides a greater sense of satisfaction than completing an eBook -- because you didn't just finish something, you finished something that is important, perceptually. (Or at least more important, comparatively, than an eBook.)

Seeing our hobbies as important may also help us feel less like we're wasting our time on recreation, which may even benefit one's entire view on self-care. Recreation is important for your personal well-being. If you put effort into recreation, you may end up perceiving it as important, so you may perceive your personal well-being as  important. Going out of your way to effortfully treat yourself to something you enjoy seems like a great way to tell yourself that you are important, more so than doing something for yourself that is easy and convenient. Which sounds more rejuvenating for you spiritually (not physically): (A) an evening consisting of carefully crafting a perfect cup of hot chocolate, curling up with a physical book to read, and popping in classic video-game cartridges to play, or (B) microwaving pre-made hot chocolate from earlier, and reading books and playing games on your phone? To me (A) sounds far more effortful and physically exhausting, but more spiritually fulfilling, perhaps because the effort instills in me a respect for my pleasure and a validation of my personal well-being.

This is certainly both a more nuanced and a more wide-reaching topic than these thoughts can cover, but I find it interesting to think about. It makes me consider that technology continues to make things more convenient, but that as things become easier, this may send the wrong signals to our salience detection, and make everything seem less important.

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Alt. titles:

"Physical Media Psychology: The Benefit Of Inconvenience"

"Physical Media Psychology: Effort is Joy"

"Physical Media Psychology: Why Effort Feels Special"

"The Psychology of Physical Media: Effort is Joy"