Analogue Season

I’ve long been meaning to undertake a month-long low tech experiment. Depending on when in the year I was planning to start, I’ve thought about Manual March/May, Analogue April¹/August, Slow September… you get the idea. It hasn’t come to fruition yet, but maybe this year will be different.

Impetus

I’m a tech person. I first programmed at 8, and now work as a software developer. For a while, I was enthusiastic about new technology. I was excited when we got a family computer, amazed by high-speed internet, thrilled to get my first smartphone. But like many (daresay most?), I’ve become disillusioned with what technology has become. Far more capable authors have written about this at great length, so I won’t say more than that at the social level.

But personally, I’m appalled at the power my phone has over me. I think, oh, I’m interested in reading the news, so it’s just replacing a newspaper, or well, doing Connections and the Mini and Gubbins and enclose.horse every morning is the same as my grandparents doing the newspaper crossword, or whatever, spending 2 or 3 hours scrolling through short-form video isn’t that different from my parents watching Frasier reruns when I was a teenager, but I suspect I’m kidding myself. It feels more addictive, and many experts are saying the same thing. A smartphone binge makes me feel foggy and disconnected from reality. I go long stretches without reading books, of which I used to devour stacks. I feel like I never have time.

At the same time, I’m not against the mere idea of technology. Making and using tools to the degree that we do is possibly the main thing that makes us human ². Personally, I’m drawn to the idea of actively using vintage technology as a way of understanding history, and maybe as a shot of nostalgia, too. With my lack of follow-through, I haven’t actually done much about this draw, but I’ve owned some artifacts:

• a mostly decorative Tandy 102 on my wall
• various other computers about 10 years beyond their true useful age that have come into and gone out of my life without much practical use
• ditto electric typewriters
• though one manual typewriter has stayed!
• a receipt printer in my storage closet
• an approximately 6" by 10" piece of chain mail I made
• too many notebooks to count (see On Diaries )

The irony of writing a blog post on this topic isn’t lost on me, but I’ll defend it by saying it feels different. I’m organizing my thoughts in long-form writing, hopefully committing to doing something real in my life, and just maybe connecting with someone out there who finds it valuable.

Idea

Anyway, this all leads me to the idea of subjecting myself to an experiment where I use older forms of various pieces of technology – often meaning that one function of a smartphone is replaced by a whole new object. It’s a bit arbitrary, but it’s not like this is Real Science anyway. It would be impossible (?) to follow through on all of my ideas at once, but I’ve given some thought to how I would low-tech each facet of my life³, and I hope to pursue at least some of these this year.

Timeline

I’m never one to do something by half-measures. Propose the most ambitious version and fail to even get started, sure, but not a half-measure!

So here’s my plan:

• Manual March: During this time, I prepare. I may need to buy some supplies or vintage technology, or source physical media, in order to reduce smartphone reliance. As desired, I can start to experiment with some different ways of doing things, while not giving up on my smartphone or other conveniences.

• Analogue April: This is the unhinged retro month. Ideally, I’ll live without some key pieces of technology I’ve come to rely on, and probably get frustrated.

• Mindful May: In this last stretch, I’ll consciously, mindfully reintegrate modern technology that I truly missed in April, and that I think brings more good than harm. Maybe I’ll shed all my retro tech, or maybe I’ll become a true weirdo.

Principles

1. Roll back technology as far as I will find it fun, not further. Telephones improved our lives, and I don’t want to be limited to writing letters or physically going to where someone is in order to communicate with them.
2. Err on the side of choices that increase human connection.
3. Frame changes as new ways of doing things, rather than restrictions and cutting things out of my life. I hope to gain, not lose.
4. Don’t fall victim to consumerism – buy used or make my own.
5. Stopping an experiment early is not failure.

Facets

Computers in general

I’m not going so far as to not use a computer at all. Of course I don’t want to lose my job, so 9-5, I’ll be using a computer as usual. Beyond that, I’m not sure yet – I’ll need to define this case by case.

Phone

One option is to not carry a cellphone at all. There’s no way in hell I’m getting a real landline for this. However, I’ve been thinking I could get a regular phone and a VoIP adapter, such as the Grandstream HT502 which is commonly available on eBay. I already have a VoIP number⁴, and I could even forward my incoming mobile calls to it. (Major pitfall here is that I’d likely need to answer a lot of spam/scam calls). In addition, I’d need to collect a page or small booklet containing the numbers of people I’d like to call.

The other option is to switch to a dumb phone. This way, I’d be able to call in emergencies, and still have access to SMS (and possibly Signal? There are “smartphones” that look like Motorola RAZRs!)

Instant messaging

This is a tricky one. I’ll have a phone in place, but my friends would need to put up with using the phone as if they aren’t millenials – namely answering it when I call, and calling me instead of messaging. This may be socially isolating, and that would not be great for me.

Alternatively, I could go a bit less retro, and return to what I had as a teenager: computer-based instant messaging à la MSN Messenger. Signal, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger should all be fine as long as my phone is on somewhere. I could easily leave it out of sight, charging, in a drawer.

Calendar

In my natural state, I’m a horribly disorganized mess. I’m scared of what it will be like to be without Google Calendar for a month, and I feel bad for the effect this may have on my spouse, as we have a shared calendar that’s truly indispensable.

I will try and mitigate by carrying a notebook for appointments on-the-go, and keeping a calendar on the fridge.

Navigation

I’m not looking forward to this. Google Maps is fantastic, and I rely on it all the time, but I can tell that it hasn’t been good for my sense of direction. I’m going to try and get by with a paper map, and maybe a bus timetable, if such a thing still exists. If not, perhaps I can use a dumbphone to text for next bus instructions. Driving is going to be interesting for sure.

Photography

I don’t take a lot of photos. It always feels like it takes me out of the moment when I try to document things. Still, I appreciate the end result. I often have a slideshow of old photos running on the TV, and I love to glance over and relive a memory (or sometimes struggle to figure out what was going on in that photo).

Not carrying a phone around will nonetheless remove even the opportunity to easily take a photo. Maybe this could prompt me to make the decision to really go out and do photography. I have my dad’s old SLR sitting on a shelf, and it looks like it’s still possible to get film developed at a local lab.

Fitness tracking

I find having a Garmin watch for running very beneficial, and I think it’s just a genuine improvement to my life. I also don’t find Strava to have any of the negative effects of other social media – I don’t find myself scrolling it endlessly (honestly, just not that interesting), and I’ve long made peace with the fact that I run more slowly and less frequently than many people, so it doesn’t lead to feelings of inferiority or anguish.

I’m training for a half marathon, and I hope to finally break 2 hours. I don’t want to jeopardize that for an experiment that may not even have any benefit, so I’m unlikely to give this one up.

Music-making

I do a bit of electronic music using Bitwig and a small modular synth. The modular seems fine, but Bitwig maybe not as much. I do also own a couple different traditional instruments which I could pick up again.

Entertainment

I think I should be able to manage not using a phone or computer for entertainment, and I already often go more than a month without gaming.

My spouse and I do watch TV together, and I feel like it’s a truly enjoyable activity that sparks conversations. However, the on-demand, fractured nature of modern streaming services does feel like something that’s perhaps not great for society, as it logically must compete with live events such as theatre and concerts, and even the more mundane activities of going to the pub or going to a movie with a roomful of other human beings. I’m going to try and do more of that instead. On the personal side, reading the same book together and discussing it, could be an interesting alternative at home. So I think TV, too, can be put aside for a month.

I’d also like to get away from music streaming services, as I’ve felt my connection to music becoming more superficial and less emotional over time. This may just be an inevitable result of getting older, but I’d like to at least test the hypothesis that having instant access to all the music in the world⁵ results in a more fleeting, shallower connection with any one song or album. I have a small record collection, which I’ll definitely listen to, but I think using an old iPod is also fair game. Who knows, I may even go buy a discman from a thrift store to listen to some CDs.

Payment

I don’t know that using credit and debit cards results in anything harmful from a purely psychological perspective, but something does bug me about a fully cashless society. I don’t want to get too deeply into politics here, but I will say that it seems harmful to centralize control of our ability to pay for the necessities of life. Today, it’s purely convenient to see exactly how much money I spend each month, and I hardly ever use cash, but if it were to become impossible, that would make me uncomfortable. There’s also the surveillance economy side of things to worry about. So I should perhaps (you can feel the cliché coming, can’t you?) put my money where my mouth is and use only cash for the month. Most stores in my physical vicinity still accept it.

Does this mean I’ll forego online shopping? We’ll see. I don’t get absolutely everything I buy delivered, but some items just aren’t stocked locally, and I can’t predict what those will be. Some interesting things to try and buy IRL that I don’t currently, and that are a semi-regular purchase:

• concert tickets – there are a few record stores around that sell physical tickets
• transit passes – my local system uses NFC cards, so no way around that, but I could reload my pass with cash like they do in Japan instead of setting up auto-reload online. I’m not going to start mailing cheques to pay my bills in general, though!
• accommodation – I don’t know if this is even feasible. I do have a trip or two to plan, so I might need to make an exception here. I can’t put off booking just because of my experiment.

I actually struggled to come up with this very short list, so it might not be as challenging as I thought.

Classifieds

Where I live, Craigslist is dead and Facebook Marketplace now reigns supreme. It has an engagement-driven interface, lives inside the Facebook app, and doesn’t have an API that would let me code something lower-tech to interact with it, but it’s where the stuff is. I value buying used where I can, so I think this will just have to be a concession to modernity I can’t avoid – in the past, I would have been able to browse the newspaper classifieds section, which must just be a casualty to network effects. On the plus side, most people still prefer cash for these transactions.

Alternatives I should consider: pawn shops, garage/yard/neighbourhood sales.

What to expect next

I plan to report on my progress during the prep month of March regularly. I probably won’t update during April itself, but I will definitely keep notes in a notebook, and write them up afterwards, and then, as I reintegrate various technologies in May, I’ll again write up some thoughts.

Wish me luck! Feel free to drop me a line if you have any comments or suggestions – maybe there are things I’ve overlooked, or perhaps you’ve made your own attempts at de-teching you’d like to share with me?

Endnotes