in defense of analog
i hand-wrote this one and conveniently forgot i had already written about this
recently, I’ve been going analog. this shift is a long time in the making, starting with my exits from socials over 1.5 years ago. the fact that it’s taken this long is surprising but just goes to show how strong the grip of digital convenience is.
analog how? a few major shifts:
reading physical magazines cover to cover again. I grew up coveting copies of TIME and the economist that my parents randomly had delivered — they were sometimes my only form of entertainment
writing by hand, although this has always been preferred by me much to the detriment of anyone forced to read my handwriting
discovering music by plucking a random $5 used vinyl and playing it — shoutout to shirley scott
shopping almost entirely in person for food (woah, butcher shops are an experience) and gifts (hello extremely pricey shoppy-shops)
navigating without my phone and relying on my memory, a flex and major source of pride from recovering-clueless-navigator
using a physical alarm clock and calendar instead of my phone and calendar apps
to make a point, I even decided to write this newsletter by hand first:
so why this change, besides to be insanely pretentious? (although a curiosity why that’s the likely kneejerk reaction … people tend to be very defensive about their preference for digital)
many of these habits I’ve discussed wanting to form in the past but was mentally blocked. truthfully, the internet in its immediate nature and growing enshittification via AI slop has pushed me to the other extreme. i also benefit from living in a walkable city which has made analog living a possibility.
on the immediacy of the internet: it’s actually deeply fucked up that my brain is subject to a veritable firehose of simultaneously alarming and utterly rote information whenever i go to check a map or text a friend. the analogy is cartoonish in an analog world:
you’re browsing the racks at your local thrift when someone jumps out from behind a dusty-looking PJ set to let you know that your right to marry your partner is very much at threat (looking at depop and getting a NYT notification)
you’re talking to a friend on the phone when your call is interrupted by an alert that more people have died by preventable natural disaster (calling your friend and getting a NYT notification)
you’re examining your route on the subway map when someone on the train shoves a video of dying children in front of your eyes (doom scrolling twitter on the train)
you’re looking at your local bulletin when you get the eerie feeling that a lot of the flyers are fake, and why do some of these people have 12 fingers? (ok, a stretch, but AI-generated profiles + content on social media)
obviously, these are caricatures, but maybe not so far off from the experience of being digital these days. and it’s so exhausting. how could it not be?
a very online response to the desire to shut off the firehose of the internet might be: well, it’s incredibly privileged to want to shut off the news and be blind to the atrocities around you. i think there’s very little moral difference between me learning about the latest atrocities in the world 1-2 days later when i’m in the headspace to read the news (like, picking up a physical paper) vs. me learning about it via push notification. The reaction is probably the same both times (staring off into space in dread). if anything, repeated experiences like the latter make me want to turn away even more — run off into the woods and live off the grid. that’s what happens when my sympathetic nervous system is constantly on-edge from the barrage of bad news, every day.
the appeal of inconvenience (analog-versions of life included) is that it introduces so much more blank time. blankness is needed; blankness is processing. sometimes, to savor a moment of interest, i have to have been bored in the first place. inconvenience introduces contrast, which in turn texturizes a day.
the act of seeking inconvenience, which digital-versions of life often enables, is directly correlated to time savings. there’s a desire to reduce “time-to-X”; reducing “time-to-knowing the news” or “time-to-being able to scroll again” or “time-to having my next shopping desire filled.” all of this time reduction isn’t random: it’s often micro-optimizations to be able to find more time for yourself/family/relationships/hobbies etc. in a capitalist society hellbent on forcing you to micro-optimize all your waking hours just to catch your breath, convenience feels like a lifeline.
but ironically, for me personally being real with myself, catching my breath often meant rushing through life to get back to my phone. life shouldn’t just happen in the time we allocate to it via planned events — it should happen spontaneously.
for example — it’s incredibly convenient to use amazon, and i still do sometimes. the trade of not using it is steep: 1-2 hours schlepping by foot around my neighborhood to buy versions of my amazon cart that aren’t exactly what I want and are probably more expensive. but evaluating time savings in a vacuum isn’t fair: there’s so much more potential in those 1-2 hours! the most exciting aberration that can come from buying from amazon is to go down the shopping recommendation rabbit hole and add a few more items to the cart with a click of a button. but a 1-2 hour meandering errand? maybe I run into a friend and neighbor, have a conversation with an owner of a store and then support them financially. maybe I get to see blue skies and kids laughing as they scooter across the street. maybe I see a hidden wine bar I’ve never spotted before, or laugh at a stupid piece of graffiti on the ground. maybe, in the gap of time between wanting to buy this particular thing and having the time to go on the search to find it, i realize i don’t need it after all.
(i explore the relationship between convenience and shopping more in this newsletter.)
i’ll end with this ask: the next time you reach for the convenient, often digital option, reconsider. what are you conserving your time for? could a different path be of interest? at the end of this newsletter/tirade, my cramped hand certainly thinks so.
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love this!!!