We’re in the midst of a great upheaval and advance in the use of digital technology.
Language models are embedded ad nauseam into tools that, daily, transform the worlds of work, art, and philosophy. With each newly released API, we argue for more reliance on computers and their accoutrements. With every billion dollar investment, we chart a path further from the world of those antithetical technologies that, for so long, intentionally gave us less than we knew we could want.
A polaroid cannot be uploaded to the cloud for safe-keeping. Nor can a record player skip to a specific song with ease and exactitude. A typewriter has no backspace. And a cinematic projector does not have streaming services built-in for your viewing pleasure…
These (alongside journals, analog watches, and radios) are the last bastion of an age dying a prolonged death. Their charm now only appeals to hipster Zoomers and die-hard Boomer’s as the lure of digital superpowers entice the majority. These tools are called antiquated and inefficient.
Interestingly, the argument against every one of those is also the reason for it. (Just as Michael Scott said his weaknesses are that, “I work too hard, I care too much, and sometimes I can be too invested in my job”).
A polaroid is made sacred by its singular, tactile nature. A vinyl listener enjoys the effort and experience of the whole album. A typewriter discourages confusion between the edit and the creation. The projector forces movie-goers to place greater value on the film as a piece of art and not a commodity…
These designs are enriching. They bring us back to ourselves and abuse us of the notion that we can be gods.
But we may be at risk of losing these gems entirely. As the printed word has decreased in cultural and economic value in our time, these analog technologies are seen as less “productive” or “practical” and simply as luxury items. We have inherited the insatiable craving to upgrade all our tools and “pour water in already-thin soup.” More and more innovation on the tech-scape hemorrhages our focus from work on the ever-growing problem-scape. Digital tech rushes along the path of increased integration and activation with no heed to externalities and no concerns about the purpose of infinite growth.
In its wake stands the world of analog, often only sought after for its nostalgia or aesthetic, never its utility. In today's world of instantly immersive experiences and personally automated interactions, analog tech is a fly in the ointment, a crack in the canvas, as Doyle might say. Record players and typewriters are quirky oddities at best, clunky clutter at worst. With unlimited access to crystal clear audio, the practice of setting a record and dropping a needle seems ineffectual and cumbersome. A lack of spellcheck and a 'backspace' key is impractical, so a notebook pales in comparison to its feature-rich descendant in numerous software forms.
Aesthetic, nostalgia, and awareness are ephemeral qualities that matter in the face of all-consuming digital machines. Convenience has proven to be fatal, multi-tasking a lie, and productivity a fleeting end in itself. The tactile, "realer than real, truer than true", beautifully imperfect nature of these now antiquated tools is on offer to us. The cost is a paradigm shift.
Analog tech can be defined, though it has never been of enough worth to do so, as a tool that differs from digital technology because of two vital factors: friction and restriction.
Friction is a trait we have been conditioned to believe is bad. In actuality, it is neutral.
In popular habit-forming literature, some of the best advice has to do with decreasing friction to lower a task's startup cost. Place your running shoes by the bed, lay a book atop your nightstand. The design of your environment in these examples diminishes friction to produce smooth and reliable on-ramps for new habits.
The same advice cautions its readers to increase friction around habits they want to rewrite. Avoid keeping sugar-filled foods in the pantry, leave your phone outside your bedroom at night. These are road-blocks to bingeing foods and entertainment that typically do not net positive in our lives. Friction is a tool to be applied or removed as needed.
A smartphone, like all digital technologies, is coded on the promise of efficient and effective operation. We know a Google search will bring an answer to our screens within milliseconds. We send text messages with the expectation and desire that our need to connect with another soul will be met rapidly.
What we don't often do on digital technology is deeply mull through and analyze information for nuance and wisdom. The invention of the search bar and Search Engine Optimization created a new language to permeate our online interactions. We all have developed a natural understanding of how to manipulate a browser window for the information we need. Very quickly, I can find 9 summations of Tolstoy's War and Peace that detail the author's thoughts on classicism and wealth without ever having to encounter the man himself. Nicholas Carr writes about the shape our minds have taken and the loss we feel only three decades into our hubris. "O'Shea, a philosophy major, doesn't see any reason to plow through chapters of text when it takes but a minute or two to cherry-pick the pertinent passages using Google Book Search." Reduced friction for supra-human ability (but we'll return to this idea in a moment).
The world constructed around us is filled with conveniences to numb us in the dull moments. Streaming Netflix and Podcasts increase our streaming hours and replace analog tech like the projector and books. Spotify and Apple Music have increased our listening hours, but decreased the number of us proficient in playing the instruments receding further into the background.
With the ability to choose from age-old or day-old art, entertainment, and information, we are quick to believe stories of our supremacy in the natural order. Enter, restriction.
A typewriter only types. A record player won’t play CD’s or stream Apple Music. A journal will stay empty until you put in the work to manually write in your thoughts.
These are features. The temptation to prefer that which provides multiple functions is strong. Our world praises multi-tasking. We load iPads with every imaginable app and call it “simplicity” despite its form and ethos contradicting this move. We are tricked into an ephemeral power that is not our’s.
It’s hard to stand in the way of this “innovation” and say an old way is better. Freedom is not contemporarily defined by limitation but by the obliteration of boundaries. But it is those who find freedom in less, restraint, and austerity that realize they have access to a host of “features” through virtue, presence, and perspective.
Restriction and friction are not commonly held aloft as note-worthy. Not many see the value in venturing down their beaten path. But does Frost not implore us in this direction? What would it take for you to return to the conclusion that loss is gain and less is more? What would it take to risk the road less traveled?
