A visit to the analog-verse
I admit I’m experiencing some unsavoury schadenfreude watching the hubris of Elon Musk lead to billions in losses, or the struggles of Mark Zuckerberg and his Black Mirror-esque Metaverse. (Except, of course, real people in the real world are losing real jobs). There is too much airplay given, and mindspace taken, over Twitter (aka X) and Facebook and TikTok. Too much misinformation and too many algorithms leading to self-fulfilling thought bubbles.
Social media may be good for opining (and even organizing), but not as good for listening. There is, of course, undeniably great content across multiple platforms. That means many of us are less present and more distracted than ever in social settings.
These are hardly original thoughts on the state of our online affairs. Yet this latest round of social media discontent should remind us to take more breaks from the digital world. A digital detox in an exotic locale or the deletion of social accounts is not realistic for most, or even the right solution, but additional moments of analog living could help your well-being and your creativity.
It requires a conscious strategy to carve out times when you leave the pixels behind. Forget the phone when you go for lunch. Go for a walk in the woods without your mobile. (I know not everyone is able to do this, and there are legit safety reasons to stay connected.) Listen to a vinyl record or cassette without skipping tracks. Keep the screens out of the bedroom.
I carve out my analog moments by taking photo walks with a film camera. It slows me down. I focus more consciously (excuse the pun) on what is around me because I only have 24 shots to a roll. There’s not the constant pull of looking at the image displayed on a screen after each press of the button as when shooting digital. And by the time the film is developed, I won’t remember what I shot; it’s nice to get a surprise these days.
More time in the ‘analog-verse’ could help us:
Improve connections with the people you interact with at home and work
Break the unconscious habit of constantly checking your phone
Become more aware of the community around you — for better or for worse
Feel calmer — social media can amplify anger
I recently went backwoods camping, alone. Just me, my kayak, a hammock tent, some dehydrated food, and a waterproof film camera (a Canon WP-1 point & shoot for fellow photography nerds). I didn’t take my phone. It spurred a familiar but increasingly distant memory of being bored, of not having a near instant answer to just about any question. It’s often a challenge for me to calm the mind — this forced it on me. It opened up time and space to think about ideas in a non-distracted way.
While I may shoot mainly with a film not digital camera, I of course use my smart phone a lot, too much no doubt. I recognize the benefits of (and partake in) the online/mobile ecosystem and how it can:
Allow people to build relationships with others no matter where they are
Open a wellspring of knowledge and encourages us to embrace new perspectives
Create community for those who have challenges navigating the tangible world
Help galvanize movements for positive change (and there’s the rub — movements for regressive change too).
Back in the 90s, I was part of a group that created an early online sustainable communities information bank. Our corner of cyberspace had articles on green economics, international development, and the natural world. It had an online ‘Sustainable Maritimes Town Hall’ and profiles of non-profits, businesses, and community groups working on sustainability.
I remember the belief we had that ‘the world-wide web’ as we called it then was not automatically preordained to become a bastion of consumerism. Our working motto was to help “pedal the information bike path” not monetize an information super-highway. This hope was born of a youthful earnestness if not naïveté that has been replaced by a form of skeptical optimism. But I still try to support and promote those corners of the online world that are not just about earning potential and clicks-per-ad and commercial data collection.
There’s good stuff on the web and on social, but you still deserve a (digital) break today. When you return from your analog mini-vacation, ‘the Facebook’ and all the others — the good, the bad, and the truly strange — will still be there. You probably won’t have missed that much of importance.
-SK
