A phrase will recover the address from one particular wallet but over the years there has been many of those and back in the days we didn't really have phrases, just keys. So you could say I grew up with keys.

Also, if you store individual keys instead of phrases you can import any key to any wallet of that respective chain at any time. Or use the same key across multiple devices, up to you. Phrases, I don't know, they aren't for me.