They're physical things, interacted in the physical world, without any way for the companies involved to claw back the content, or to data-mine the scrapbook, your albums, etc, for listening data and such (though I imagine a smart TV with a mic will try).

That's a good direction to see movement in. They're not doing "online scrapbooks" or something. And given the long standing records of "What you said 15 years ago online is used to ruin you today," ephemeral, or "not online in the first place," makes a lot of sense.

I'm certainly glad my entire school experience wasn't logged in great detail...

> They're physical things, interacted in the physical world, without any way for the companies involved to claw back the content

Oh, there's ways. In the 90s, there was a rental scheme with sealed discs that would degrade in air to become unusable within a week. (At least that was upfront, if wasteful). I've had one at least CD rot from the inside, and it's a major issue for LaserDiscs. Careful material science could make this the norm.

"Everything is ephemeral and by and large they're just fine with that."

Today.

Young people being fine with that when they are still in flux is not a new thing. A 21-year-old being nostalgic is almost the basis for a comedy sketch more than a serious concern. I'm not yet convinced they've broken any human patterns when they're still fitting fairly comfortably into the existing patterns on that. If anything I'd bet they're going to discover a larger desire for a foundation than anyone else because the "default" ones have been ripped away and they can't just sort of settle into an existing one easily.

Photo albums and music recordings didn’t even exist until the 20th century. What did we do for tens of thousands of years before that?

Told stories.

And what is TikTok and Instagram at the end of the day? The modern means for telling stories.

The 20th century was an aberration of human history. We don’t need to cling to it.

Told stable stories, generally in a stable culture.

The 20th century is indeed an abberation; the 21st a bigger one.

I suspect what you're calling a stable story are the myths, legends, and lore that comprise a culture?

If so, I would argue those are cultural stories.

I was thinking more along the lines of family stories, personal stories, friends stories and things like that.

If not, then what is a stable story?

Gen Z is young, have no money, have no optimism for the future, are completely un-technical when it comes to computers, but are EXTREMELY technical when it comes to understanding apps, social media, and weird frustrations like this one.

It remains to be seen once they enter the job market, and despite the cultural perspective inevitably many do succeed, and start making money.

I wouldn't be surprised if they absolutely do focus more on physical media. They are rejecting Instagram look-obsessive culture, and look fondly at what we did in the 2000s when every Party meant a 50-photo Facebook Photo dump, 49 of which would never be "good enough" to make it to Instagram these days.

Gen Z is already in the job market. The eldest are in their mid 20s.