Did a Loss of People's Leisure Time Kill RadioShack?

Conducting Business

After a long decline, RadioShack recently filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to shutter more than 1,700 stores. As many music lovers know, RadioShack was once the place to get speaker wire, headphones, adapters, or even a Realistic-brand stereo system. But how times have changed.

On this week's show, Christopher Mims, the Wall Street Journal's technology columnist, tells us about the cultural shifts that are behind Radioshack's demise. In a recent article he argued that the loss of RadioShack paralleled the decline of leisure time for would-be hobbyists and tinkerers.

"The kind of leisure that we're engaging in has shifted," he tells host Naomi Lewin. "Apps and mobile devices are appealing because they let us snack during our leisure time. What we're missing is the loss of big, unbroken blocks of time that would allow somebody to be a hobbyist, to learn a new skill or repair something like a computer."

Mims remembers getting his first Tandy computer at RadioShack during the 1980s, and being "totally blown away and feeling like I was looking at the future."

What are your favorite memories of RadioShack? What will you miss or not miss about the stores? Please share your thoughts below.