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What happened when I gave up all tech and went analogue for a month

Liat Joshi - Andrew Crowley
Liat Joshi - Andrew Crowley

From streaming box sets to navigating the streets with smartphone mapping to our ever more connected homes, almost every aspect of our work, rest and play is touched by digital technology now. No wonder next week's Cyber Monday has become such a big deal in the UK.

And yet, despite modern lives being so "plugged in", there's a small but growing trend to revert to the simpler, slower pleasures of analogue.

UK print book sales are growing faster than those of ebooks and even Amazon opened a bricks-and-mortar bookshop in Manhattan last year. Meanwhile, vinyl is undergoing a renaissance: four million records were sold in 2017, according to the British Phonographic Industry association.

New interest in old media - I call it "analogue-ing" - isn't just about the middle-aged seeking a nostalgia fix. David Sax, Canadian author of The Revenge of Analog, says, "It's driven by younger digital natives who don't see computers as special, because they've always been part of their lives. They're adopting analogue as a way to have different experiences. It's about the tangible benefits, tactility and physicality of touching and owning actual things."

Dr Emmanuel Tsekleves, senior lecturer in design interactions at Lancaster University, agrees: "As humans we're drawn to objects we can physically touch, feel and smell. This is linked to the way our brain is wired." He highlights too that physical items help us define ourselves to others.

"We have a desire to own objects (books, vinyl records, etc) as opposed to a licence (Kindle, iTunes) and thus be able to collect, share and exhibit these." A print book isn't merely something to read, it's also a signifier of who we are - or want to be - when we're reading it in a café, or it's on display on our bookshelves.

With all this in mind, for the past three weeks I've committed to trading digital for analogue in as many aspects of my life as possible. Work would be excluded - modern journalism moves too fast for posting typed-out features to editors. This would be about focused swaps to analogue to compare experiences, not the now well-worn path of digital detox per se.

How would it be, for instance, to switch my always-with-me phone camera for an old-school 35mm film model? Or drop my convenient music streaming service for vinyl?

I hoped that analogue might slow the pace of my life down and improve my concentration and reboot my memory to Nineties levels, before both were hampered by online multitasking and everything I need to know (and plenty I don't) being available on-screen.

Here's what happened when I went "analogue-ing".

THE BIG SWAPS

OUT with the new smartphone camera

IN with the old vintage 35mm Pentax

I was never much of a photographer and I appreciate the foolproof nature of smartphone photography, but I'm excited about the potential upsides of this switch. It helps that the camera I've borrowed is a vintage beauty - a 35mm Pentax housed in a lovely leather case.

Photography - Credit: Andrew Crowley
Credit: Andrew Crowley

But while decidedly handsome, the Pentax weighs a ton - you can't really pop it in your pocket so that it's always to hand. The first time I use it, rather ridiculously I instinctively look down for a screen to see how the shot turned out. There's no instant gratification or option to delete and try again here. It's strangely disorienting. But equally I'm more "in the moment". I've got a 36-exposure film and I want to save each shutter press for things that are worthy, so I carefully contemplate what might look good through that lens. This all makes me feel like a professional snapper. That is, until I see the results of my efforts at the photo processing shop.

Instead of capturing precious memories, I've mainly just captured several shots with my finger over the lens, some of the pavement/floor/sky and plenty that are out of focus. I'd paid around £12.50 for film and processing, traipsed to Snappy Snaps and ended up with, at best, a handful of half-decent shots.

I have, however, put a couple of my best shots on display on the fridge. This contrasts with my digital pics that I could print but never do, so they sit in their thousands on my smartphone, unloved and unviewed.

Verdict: 

Digital is the victor on this one. There's something mindful about analogue photography, but unfortunately I'm the type of skill-devoid snapper that smartphone cameras seem designed for. I can take countless photos, keep the decent ones, delete the duffers and kid myself I'm some sort of Annie Leibovitz. And it's cheaper and more portable too.

OUT with the new Kindle App

IN with the old print books

While I was initially charmed by instantly downloading any book, any time, anywhere and being able to take bottomless supplies of reading material on trips within a small gadget, I've grown disillusioned with digital reading.

I've tried both dedicated e-readers and the Kindle app on a tablet. The app leaves too much temptation from other online activities; the e-reader has fewer distractions, but I still don't absorb what I read so well, miss being able to handwrite notes and see physically how far through a chapter or book I've progressed.

I buy a copy of a classic novel - it's tactile, neatly dimensioned and with an aesthetically appealing cover design. It even smells nice.

reading - Credit: Andrew Crowley
Credit: Andrew Crowley

I read it far more speedily than similar books I'd tried to read on screen and take more of it in, too. Plus I've missed owning actual books - they're beautiful, decorative and, as they sit on the shelf, remind me of the places I read them and the people I discussed them with.

Verdict: 

Clearly there are benefits to ebooks, such as for holiday reading, but I'm firmly back into print.

OUT with the new iPhone calendar

IN with the old Filofax

As potent a symbol of Eighties Yuppiedom as a Golf GTi and an upturned collar, the Filofax was clutched under the arms of many until we ditched paper diaries for devices around the turn of the millennium. Nowadays, like everyone else, pretty much my whole life is run on my iPhone calendar and, with my increasingly shaky memory, I rely on preset reminders of events to beep at me, rather than having to check and recall what's in my schedule.

The shiny new Filofax I try out for three weeks looks stylish and is large enough for all sorts of notes and to do lists, but my goodness it's inconvenient to lug around everywhere. The address book pages seem especially redundant when phone numbers and email addresses are programmed into my phone and I barely send snail mail any more. And having to manually check for events is a recipe for disaster (and several missed appointments).

Filofax - Credit: Andrew Crowley
Credit: Andrew Crowley

Verdict: 

The physical presence of handwritten to-do lists on my desk is useful and the Filofax does look pretty, but the convenience of my phone's calendar and address book mean there's no contest: my diary will be staying digital.

Filofax Saffiano, £52, John Lewis

OUT with the new streaming Amazon Prime Music

IN with the old vinyl record player

Downloading any music instantly via the likes of Spotify and Amazon Music would have been wildly inconceivable to my Eighties self. My teenage music buying was a time-consuming hobby - heading to the local record shop to leaf through alphabetically ordered racks for whatever I'd read about in that week's Smash Hits. Now, streaming music instantly is a breeze.

I can make playlists or download ready-made ones. I can shuffle songs, and listen anywhere, whether it's commuting or running.

Record player - Credit: Andrew Crowley
Credit: Andrew Crowley

And yet this was the biggest surprise of my experiment - I'm utterly charmed by the little Bush vintage-style record player that cost under £20. The ritual of taking an LP out of its art-adorned sleeve, putting it on the turntable and setting the arm is more satisfying than I remember, and infinitely more so than scrolling through a list and pressing play on a screen. Yes, it's fiddly, the closest thing to a "shuffle" function is guessing where the next song starts and I worry about scratching the record grooves. And yes, the sound quality is practically prehistoric compared with my modern Bluetooth speakers, but I'm enchanted by the sound of Motown on vinyl all the same.

Verdict: 

Realistically I'm not about to swap my streaming service for vinyl full-time - I can't exactly drag the record player around when walking the dog - but I'll be back to the charity shop to buy more LPs very soon.

Bush Retro Turntable, £19.99, Argos

OUT with the new Satnav/ GPS mapping 

IN with the old - The A-to-Z

This will surely be my analogue Achilles' heel - I spent too much of my pre-satnav younger years hopelessly lost on city streets. After finding the location for an eBay seller from whom I'm buying an ancient typewriter (see right), I'm using a dog-eared A-to-Z that's sat abandoned in my hallway cupboard for a decade or more. I've heard that satnav can be a dangerous distraction for drivers but that's nothing compared with this. I try to pull over to make another check of the map, but find myself sneaking a look at traffic lights. I'd forgotten how tiresome it was when your route goes over the edge of a page too - all that "argh now I've got to turn to page 27, where the hell is square K5?".

Driving - Credit: Andrew Crowley
Credit: Andrew Crowley

Verdict: 

There's nothing nostalgic about my re-acquaintance with the A-to-Z - it's nothing more than an old-fashioned hassle and much more distracting when driving.

 

WHAT ELSE I TRIED

OUT: texting my mum

IN: phone calls and posted notecards only

This simply didn't work - we gave up after two days. My mum lives alone four hours from me and my siblings, so regular texting brightens her day and allows me to help with practical issues when I can't practically make phone calls. We're often told that tech harms family relationships, but this demonstrates how it enhances them, too.

OUT: Microsoft Word on a laptop

IN: a typewriter

As a child I played with a typewriter similar to the Remington I source (from the very digital eBay) and found it quite magical.

Typewriter - Credit: Andrew Crowley
Credit: Andrew Crowley

It's still charming but it's also entirely impractical compared with my laptop, where I can edit and rewrite to my heart's content. Too much of a palaver to use, even for recreational rather than work writing.

OUT: streaming TV series on demand

IN: watching only what's on 'now' on terrestrial

Was television always this terrible? How on Earth did we survive? I can choose either watching "whatever's on", little of which I'm interested in, or not bothering at all. I largely go with the latter. It highlights how spoilt for choice we are now with streaming - and what a picky a viewer I've become.

CONCLUSION

There are good reasons why tech has become so integral to our daily lives - it's significantly more effective. We enjoy the convenience of having a world of information, music and media at our fingertips wherever we are. And yet analogue appeals to our senses in a way that digital can't. It brings satisfaction of owning objects - I'd hazard a guess that many of us, young and old, miss that more than we realise. "Analogue-ing" was inconvenient in so many ways, yet it did make me slow down, concentrate better and absorb more too. There's something decidedly appealing about its simplicity and physicality, even if it's only really practical for occasional recreational use. My advice? Power down once in a while, and give it a go.