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As technology fragments, polarizes and automates, people still seek refuge on analog islands in a digital ocean.
These resisters span generational divides, uniting enclaves of older and middle-aged people born in the pre-Internet era with digital natives who grew up in an age when the Internet was ubiquitous.
They put down their devices to draw, color, knit, and play board games. Others took the time to mail birthday cards and handwritten greetings. Some people drive cars with manual transmissions, while the cars around them are increasingly capable of driving themselves. More and more listeners are turning to vinyl records, reviving an analog format that was on the verge of death 20 years ago.
Martin Bispels, 57, said Analog Haven offers generations born between 1946 and 1980 a nostalgic haven from turbulent times. QVC The executive who recently founded Retroactv, a company that sells rock music merchandise from the 1960s and 1970s.
“The past is comforting. The past is knowable,” Bispels said. “You can define it because you can remember it the way you want to remember it.”
But escaping the analog is also appealing to Millennials and Generation Z (those born between 1981 and 2012), who are immersed in digital culture and have instant information and entertainment at their fingertips.
Despite this convenience and instant gratification, Pamela said, even young people who grew up with cutting-edge technology are craving more tactile, thoughtful and personal activities that won’t be lost in the digital ephemera. paulauthor of “100 Things We Lost” internet“.
“The younger generation has an almost longing for it because so little in their lives is tangible,” Paul said. “They are beginning to recognize how the Internet has changed their lives and are trying to revive the face-to-face, low-tech environment that these older generations took for granted.”
Here’s some insight into how old ways can become new again.
Keep those cards coming
people Cards have been exchanged for centuries. This ritual threatens to be obliterated by a tsunami of text messages and social media posts. In addition to being faster and more convenient, digital communication has become more economical, as the cost of a first-class U.S. stamp has soared from 33 cents to 78 cents over the past 25 years.
But thanks to people like Meghan, the tradition lives on evansTen years ago, when she was 21, she started a Facebook group called “Random Acts of Cardness” in hopes of cultivating and sustaining more human connections in an increasingly impersonal world.
“Anyone can send a text saying ‘Happy birthday!’ but sending a card is a more intentional way to tell someone you care,” said Evans, who lives in Wickliffe, Ohio. “This is something the sender has touched, and you will hold it in your own hands.”
Evans now has more than 15,000 people in his Facebook group, including Billy-Jo Dieter, and he sends at least 100 cards a month to commemorate birthdays, holidays and other milestones. “A dying art,” she calls it.
“My goal is to try to make at least one person smile every day,” said Dieter, 48, who lives in Ellsworth, Maine. “When you sit down and put pen to paper, it becomes more specific to that person.”
The singularity of the gear lever
Before technofuturist Ray Kurzweil came up with a concept he calls the “singularity” to describe his vision of computers and humans merging, the roads were crowded with manual transmission cars working in tandem with humans.
But as technology turns cars into computers on wheels, manual transmission cars seem to be being forgotten. According to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency, less than 1% of new cars sold in the United States are equipped with manual transmissions, down from 35% in 1980.
But there are still stick-shift diehards like Prabh and Divjeev Sohi, who drive manual-transmission cars along Tesla-filled Silicon Valley roads on their way to classes at San Jose State University. They became fascinated with the stick shift as children, virtually driving cars in video games or riding in the manual-transmission vehicles their fathers and grandfathers drove.
So when they were old enough to drive, Prabhu, 22, and Divjiev, 19, were determined to learn a skill that few of their peers were willing to attempt: mastering the nuances of the clutch that controls a manual transmission, a process that brought their 1994 Jeep Wrangler to a complete stop with the frustrated driver stranded behind them.
“The first time he hit the road he stalled five times,” Prabhu recalled.
While the experience still gives Diffjeff chills, he feels it has moved him to a better place.
“When you drive a car with a stick, you’re more focused on the moment. Basically you’re just there driving, you’re not doing anything else,” Divjeff said. “You know the car, and if you don’t handle it right, the car isn’t going to move.”
Rediscover the virtues of vinyl records
In the 1980s, when compact discs emerged, the obsolescence of vinyl records seemed inevitable. The launch sparked a void for analog records that bottomed out in 2006, when vinyl records were sold at 900,000 units, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. It’s a moribund struggle for a record format that peaked in 1977, when 344 million vinyl records were sold.
But the decline has unexpectedly reversed, and vinyl records are now a growing niche market. Over the past two years, vinyl records have been sold at an estimated 43 million per year, despite the widespread popularity of music streaming services that can stream virtually any song by any artist at any time.
Baby boomers expanding their collections of decades-old albums weren’t the only catalyst. The younger generation is also beginning to embrace the gorgeous sound of vinyl records.
“I really enjoy listening to vinyl albums from beginning to end. It feels like I’m sitting with the artist,” said 24-year-old Carson Bispels. “Vinyl just adds to that permanence and makes the music feel more authentic. It’s you and the music, and that’s the way it should be.”
Carson is the son of former QVC executive Martin Bispels. A few years ago, Martin gave Carson several of his vinyl records, including Bob Marley’s “Taklin’ Blues,” which had been played so many times that it sometimes cracked and exploded from scratches on the inside.
“I still listen to it because every time I listen to it, I think about my dad,” said Carson, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Starting with about 10 vinyl records from his father, Carson now owns about 100 and plans to keep expanding.
“The current era of digital music is great, too, but there’s nothing more personal than walking into a record store and flipping through a stack of albums while making small talk with some other customers to learn about the music they’re listening to,” Carson said.
Paul, the author of a book about the analogue movement swallowed up by the internet, said vinyl’s resurgence has her thinking about a possible sequel. “Back to Humanity,” she said, “could be another book.”