I am trying a slightly different type of post this year I said and one of the posts I want to do is more a discussion piece arpound a subject or topic that has caught my attention now this can be book or slightly book related this I fell is slightly related but on the whole is about a whole thing that has been growing in the last year or two. That is the Analogue moment, whether it is a bag of stuff to stop people doomscrolling, taking photos with a film camera or buying vinyl and CDs. I think this is a big moment this year: from small coffee roasters to small bookshops and record shops, there has been a move away from large chains and online shopping. Now, for me, I lived before computers and smartphones. In fact, I was in my twenties when I first got online, around the time Twitter started. I loved those early years, but in recent years, I have noticeably moved back from being online as much. But I do doomscroll, I watch way too much YouTube for my liking. I never got TikTok, and I find Instagram just full of people trying to take pretty pictures of books and trying to sell their book clubs, which people have to pay for. aI llo hold off as i am heading to a topic for another post here. Anyway. Analogue, I’m sure you have seen it crop up in your feed at some point. For me, it is a younger generation that has only known the likes of Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, infinite scroll, and Your Every Move, and thought that adding to a growing algorithm was the norm. A situation of too many choices, but then that choice is being dictated by an algorithm that feeds people addiction to infinite scrolling, their music, taste in films, news, in fact, everything online. We for a few year Amanda and I online food shop until I said one day we decided to order virtually the same shop as last month as the shop gives you previous buys first we had got so used to clicking oin them we had lost that scaning the super market aisles for the last producto or offer or just that ingrident you hadn’t brought for a while. Now we could look harder online, but we haven’t had an online shop for about seven or eight years. It is the same for me in a lot of ways I have a huge cd and viynl collection I have spotify but as for what decides my taste, I still listen to a few radio shows, buy a couple of monthly music magazines, and have done this for the last 30 years my only ever algorthim was maybe John Peel when I was younger for music. Now I read only paper books. I have a Kindle, but I just have never got used to using an ereader. I love the feel of books. I love the discovery of second-hand books. As for being on an algorithm, I do buy a few books online. I would very rarely be the target of a bookstore’s online recommendations. I do lament the loss of newspaper book coverage and its steady shrinkage over the years. I remember the first time I came across Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson in the papers in the mid-90s. I still buy two papers every Saturday and Sunday, a habit that harks back to my dad, who had three or four papers most weekends. I stopped buying so much in the week, but this is another thing that I have avoided: the news hole people fall into these days online. I rarely get my news from any sources other than newspaper sites, BBC News online, or Radio 4. I get the analogy: people want the world we once had, which is sadly gone. The world we most small towns had a couple of good newsagents for magazines, a stationery shop for pens, paper, etc., an art shop for art supplies, and even a toy shop for things like board games. These are gone, or just chain shops in most town centres these days. A world where the discovery of music books happens every time you visit a new bookshop, record shop, or listen to the radio in small, bite-sized pieces. The world wasn’t all there to overwhelm us or an algorithm, a simple time when we got bored, but then found things to do, and that wasn’t scrolling. I hold my hand up in writing this post. I have thought about how much YouTube I have watched over the last few years, and maybe I need to step back from it. I think the younger genrartion just want a bit of what I had when I was younger I grew up taking pictures doing little art bits writing list discovering records and books in the wild taking chances not worrying if a book or record was cool but I have never want to be cool part of a scene or thought of as cutting edge i have always followed my own path as many of you will know from my taste in music my books of the year i am maybe still mostly analogue in my life..not sure wha thte point of this was other than I keep seeing the word Analogue here and there and just to say I get it and welcome to life before big tech toook over. What are your thoughts? I thought the pic of my macbook with my vistorian wriitng slope was the perfect mix of digital and analogue worlds
I love this and I also want more analogue in my life. I hardly ever read digital books these days (apart from borrowing ebooks from a London library), but having algorithms shape my feeds fills me with despair. Especially when those algorithms seems to exclude my real-world – dare I say ‘analogue’? 😂 – friends!!
Yes I feel for the younger generation that have grown up use to this I miss the feel of paper books when I have tried ebooks
I’m the same as you Stu – I love analogue! I suspect I’m a bit older than you because I grew up in a pre-digital world and was in my 20s before CDs came along. So I’m proudly in favour of paper books and vinyl records! I’m as guilty as the next person at doomscrolling I’m afraid, but am trying to wean myself off them. And yes, I miss the newspaper book supplements – I used to get one every Saturday and there were some incredible recommendations!!
I miss having a big, real newspaper to browse in the morning with my coffee…
Yes there is less in the papers in the week these days as well
Yes it was sad when the guardian end their book section a couple years ago that was last my only hope is that the observer may opt that way with its new owners slow journalism would maybe suit more book coverage
What an interesting, thought-provoking post!
I don’t think I did anything digital until I was in my forties. The Offspring went to work in Western Australia, and he rigged up his computer so that we could email each other and save on the phone bill. At work, nobody knew what email was…
I think what I dislike most is the feeling that someone is looking over my shoulder. I know it isn’t a ‘someone’, it’s an algorithm, even offline when it records my purchases if I use a card and then I see ads for that business all over the blogs I visit where people haven’t purchased the No Ads option. It’s like being under surveillance.
Love my radio, don’t have a television, don’t do social media. Even then, our phones are recording us. How weird it is when something mentioned in a conversation on the street pops up on the computer. I do value the connectedness of the blogging world, the ease of communication through email though I still write letters and send cards though you need a bank loan for a stamp these days. People ‘our age’ have anxieties about AI whilst the universities are rushing to offer MSc courses in AI for everything – one at York I saw was AI in the Creative Industries. As a friend pointed out this weekend, AI can’t mend a boiler or fix a broken window, but then can the hordes of mid-range professionals who are losing their jobs to AI do that either? I will continue to resist the digital world as far as I possibly can. Nice writing slope. My mother was an antique dealer and I was lucky to grow up surrounded by beautiful handmade things
I’m a little older than you too. I remember being very excited by new technology though – embracing CDs wholeheartedly, but still buying vinyl too. When I finally sold most of our vinyl collection, there were about 1000 records. (I’ve kept about 10 only).
I hate reading books on a screen of any size – my kindle languishes unused although I did load it with tons of free classics. Give me paper – and give me hardbacks over paperbacks for the bigger pages, more white space, easier to read on the eyes. I’m not glued to my phone either.
Thank you for a thought provoking post Stu. Thinking of old technology, I like to use my fountain pen as I find my handwriting is of a slightly higher standard! Like you I love bookshops both secondhand ones and the small indie ones.