I’ve recently begun journaling. This hobby began after my best friend gifted me a leather notebook for Christmas. It has become a sort of outlet and summary of my day-to-day life. It’s not aesthetically pleasing, or pretty, by any means, but it holds stickers, receipts, and thoughts I messily write down when waiting for the train on my way to college. The physical writing of words, glueing of paper, and cutting of shapes manage to ground me in a way the notes app on my phone never could.
This form of physical documentation felt performative at first. I’d constantly think to myself: “Why waste your time making photo collages when you can just Pinterest it?” Nevertheless, the question led me to look for inspiration in that same app — a task that made me realize how popular journaling had become. Then, since I’m convinced my phone listens to everything I say, I began to get videos on TikTok and Instagram of young people beginning to indulge in other forms of physical media such as vinyl records, cassette tapes, screen projectors, magazines, and paperbacks. Naturally, a question formed: Why are we beginning to go analog in the peak of the technical age?
Before diving into that specific question, I wanted to test and see if this was only my perception or a real, new trend. Turns out, according to “The Rise of AI Art is Spurring a Revival of Analogue Media” by The Economist, “Sales of LPs and EPs are as high today as they were in the late 1980s, according to data from the Recording Industry Association of America. Last year sales in America rose by 7%, to $1.4bn, or 44m records.” The need for physical forms of media has risen, a claim backed by the economy.
So, why is that? Why do we need to “complicate” our lives when we have it so easy with modern technology?
I believe the basis for the answer to that question is two things: artificial intelligence and algorithms. When we have a tool that’s being used (and abused) to create, curate, and specialize content, we begin to miss the aleatory nature of things.
As stated in “Is AI dulling our minds?” by Liz Mineo, “A recent MIT Media Lab study reported that “excessive reliance on AI-driven solutions” may contribute” to “cognitive atrophy” and shrinking of critical thinking abilities.” The easy path provided by A.I. tools have led us to rely less on our brains; and, in order to maintain ourselves capable, many try to find new ways to avoid that outcome.
To have apps, such as Instagram and Pinterest, design your feed so you’re consuming the same media in different fonts can be tiresome. Even when Netflix curates a list of shows or movies you might like based on your watching, it makes you feel like you’re stuck in the same bubble.
However, these types of curating were a novelty at first, one that brought immense comfort and ease to many people.
In order to better understand the difference between both sentiments, I asked a dear friend of mine, Sylvia Bergodere, to contrast the best and worst aspects of technological versus analog. Sylvia, an 83-year-old ex-teacher, is up to date with modern tools. She has an “apple ecosystem” where she plans international trips on her laptop and texts her family group chat through her phone.
Apparently, she enjoys how easy it is to communicate now and how comforting it is to know that everything she needs is somewhere in her “cloud” (iCloud). However, she misses the intentionality and personal aspect of how things were done before. She especially misses it when remembering the first letter she ever wrote to one of her oldest friends, Thalia. As she remembered her friend with tears in her eyes, she also laughed thinking about their time spent together. She became plagued by nostalgia when remembering the exchanges they had through paper and wired telephones.
I believe that same nostalgia drives this new resurgence. Younger generations miss the intentionality of choosing things. As stated in “$230 notebooks, digital cameras and tiny dollhouse furniture: How Gen Z’s desire to get offline is a boon for businesses” by Megan Sauer, “the generation’s affinity for analog products — or modernized versions of them — represents many Gen Zers’ oft-cited desire to resist the mainstream.”
In a world where technology does everything for us, we’re programmed to dedicate less time to our personal lives. However, taking time to do mundane tasks brings us joy. We want to go back to a lifestyle where we had to search and choose what brought us comfort.
I think the love for analog will keep rising. When our jobs and opportunities are being taken over by technological innovations, as written by Colleen Batchelder in her article “How AI Is Changing Entry-Level Jobs And The Skills You Need To Be Resilient” when said “Employment for workers ages 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed occupations is about 19% below where it would have been if it had kept pace with the same age group in less-exposed jobs,” our only form of resistance is to base our lives on its competition.
No artificial intelligence generated piece will ever replace the hands of a writer, painter, philosopher, or musician. While the elites continue trying to replace society with robots, we’ll do what we do best: create with passion, emotion, and humanity.