Why Vinyl’s return matters for university students and our mental health

In an age where the world moves at the speed of a swipe, where attention is a currency constantly taxed and university students navigate life with assignments stacked like teetering towers of Babel, something unexpected has returned. A relic. A circle of wax. A ritual. A vinyl record. 

The revival of vinyl is more than a trend, or a retro aesthetic staged on Instagram feeds. Its return has become a quiet rebellion against the relentless acceleration of digital life. Something about lowering a needle onto a spinning disc feels like an antidote to the jittering relentlessness of the modern student mind, like choosing breath over burnout, presence over pressure. It feels like stepping barefoot into something ancient and holy, like joining hands with sound itself. 

Digital music is frictionless, it’s convenient, infinite and yet, transient. Songs drift through playlists like ghosts; we simply skip and forget. Music in this way is “content” served by algorithms that decide what we like or would possibly like, for us. While in a sense this is convenient and takes less time to curate, you lose touch with the music you feel close to. Some, if not all, students are oversaturated by the volume of options, studying to looping lo-fi beats, sprinting between classes with earbuds in and doom-scrolling on the bus home. The soundtrack of modern youth has become a never-ending cacophony for which we are not fully present.

Vinyls, by contrast, demand your presence in a way streaming music apps can’t. Not politely, but insistently. You must choose it, turn it over and commit. It is everything our digital world is not, in that sense of needing to be present in its presence. 

Perhaps this is why vinyl sales have soared in the last five years. Many university students are buying them, and the topic is widely discussed on TikTok. Taylor Swift’s Midnights, Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS and even Arctic Monkeys’ AM have become vinyl staples for Gen Z. The younger generation, raised alongside the constant hum of technology, is discovering the beauty in the slowness of analog imperfection. We are entering a cultural moment where students crave grounding. We crave texture and tangibility, and vinyls give us that. 

The life of a university student is not gentle. Workloads are heavy, and expectations even heavier. Days blur into nights, assignments stack like bricks until they resemble walls. In this kind of life, ritual disappears, especially during exam seasons. 

Vinyl, in its small, humble way, is ritual in a sense. The ritual of sliding the record from its sleeve, brushing dust from its grooves. Place the needle gently, like you are touching something alive. The ritual of listening without skipping, without checking your phone, without running from track to track the way we run through life. 

Students often live in states of constant division, multitasking, juggling and fragmenting themselves. Vinyl asks you to be whole. To listen with your full self, to absorb the album as the artist intended. A story with a beginning, middle and end. This linearity, this enforced mindfulness, becomes a sanctuary in the midst of academic chaos. 

For students, this trend of listening and being mindful with vinyls can be a slow, tactile, intentional activity that can regulate the nervous system. The sound of a needle settling into a groove triggers a kind of ASMR-like relaxation. The warm, uncompressed frequency range of vinyl produces a fuller and more embodied sound, which melts away your stress. The simple physicality of interaction with records creates a grounding effect akin to journaling, knitting or painting. 

Vinyl is mindful listening, which can lower cortisol levels and lead to a calmer vibe. Students today face unprecedented levels of anxiety, burnout and digital fatigue. The quiet act of listening to a vinyl record becomes a mental refuge not by accident, but by design. Listening becomes something sacred, a moment just for you. 

One of the most poetic reasons vinyl has returned is its honesty. Songs on vinyl have imperfections, like a bit of crackle. A slight warp, the way the needle sometimes sighs as the record spins. Digital music is perfect. Vinyl is human. 

University culture pressures students toward perfection: flawless grades, resumes, even flawless social media presences. But vinyl whispers a different truth, that flaws can be beautiful, that a wobble can add character and that warmth comes from spaces between. Listening to vinyl shows students how to embrace imperfection, and embracing imperfection is the beginning of healing. 

Another reason vinyl is resonating with young adults is identity. Music streaming algorithms compress our tastes into data. They predict what we “should” like. Our listening becomes less about who we are and more about how the machine categorizes us. Vinyl disrupts that. Owning an album, physically owning it, is an act of self-definition. A record collection is a portrait. A student storing albums they adore side-by-side on the shelf reflects not just that they are someone who listens to music, but that they are someone who curates feelings. Someone who builds their identity with intention. Someone who uses music as expression rather than consumption. 

University can be lonely sometimes, despite the fact that students are surrounded by thousands of people like them. Vinyl culture has always involved communities, whether that be through record stores, listening parties and crate digging on weekends. When students share records, they share pieces of themselves. Showing someone your favourite album, whether it’s Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) or Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die, is intimate. It’s closer to saying “this is part of me” than sending a Spotify link ever could be. 

Vinyl connects people in physical space. Digital music connects people through screens. In a world where students feel isolated by online lectures, remote classes and screen-bound socialization, it offers a connection grounded in real presence. 

There is also the simple, undeniable fact that a turntable transforms a space. Dorm rooms and small student apartments often feel temporary, transitional, chaotic and half-lived in. A vinyl setup becomes a centrepiece. A small shrine. A grounding object that says, “This is your place. This is your life, slow down and stay awhile.”

University students are facing mental health struggles, digital overload and burnout. Vinyl is not a cure by any means, but it is a balm. It gives students structure, intentionality, embodiment and the permission to slow down. It turns music into ritual, albums into companions and listening into healing. Vinyl is back because we needed it, because this generation needed something analog, something real, something that doesn’t demand performance or productivity. 

Vinyl allows us to be human in a time when humanity feels stretched thin. In the end, the return of vinyl is not only the  revival of an old format, but a revival of ourselves.