The start of the new year marked for many the start of a digital purge and a turn towards physical media, with many coming onto social media in recent months to announce their renouncement from the digital world. For some a new year’s resolution and for others simply a way to cleanse the mind from years worth of online overconsumption, this return to analogue has been emphasising the practice of intentional consumption.
So, why are people reverting back to analogue? Without speaking for everyone, one of the uniting factors seems to be people realising how ingrained digital technology has become in all facets of their individual lives and contemporary life. Having an online presence is almost of paramount importance. There is an increasing desire to be more present in reality as opposed to a focus on digital presence.
The rise of short-form content—which has been made overwhelming since the creation of apps like Vine, Musically andTikTok —has been actively promoting and pushing us to over-consume online media. The addition of short-form features to apps previously limited to photo-sharing and life-updating are aiding this slow progression into overwhelming over-consumption. In addition to this, digital technology is making things easier and easier for us. Whilst not entirely a harmful thing in regards to matters of accessibility, the effortlessness and instantaneity of dopamine boosting content is being increasingly linked to decreased attention span and brain impact in contemporary research.
This is what is largely steering people into going analogue; they want to feel like they are putting in effort. People are buying and collecting CDs instead of resorting to the instantaneity of Spotify, collecting DVDs rather than using streaming services and taking photos on film instead of the iPhone camera which produces them for immediate viewing.
The issue of a ‘mass-move’ to analogue; however, means that a larger amount of people will be consuming larger amounts of physical media so as to facilitate their analogue style of living. This means that the CDs, DVDs, cameras, vinyl’s (etc) are at risk of being over-consumed which surely contradicts the anti-consumption (albeit online consumption) stance that has driven a lot of people to ‘go analogue.’
Whilst detoxing from digital technology should definitely be encouraged, the over-consumption of online media does not need to be translated into the over-consumption of physical media that defines the analogue.
“CD player with open tray” by Jberkel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.