Return to Analog

Relax, We're Old-Fashioned Here

For me it began with not wanting to have a phone in the bedroom. Yet I needed an alarm device. I hunted high and low for an analog alarm clock. Everywhere from big boxes to hardware stores. No luck. So I went online and found several businesses which still sold them.

I liked the experience of having something that I could observe how it worked, operate the dials and take an easy peek during the night, without my eyeglasses.

I wanted more analog.

The next step was setting out to find a paper calendar. That was easier. Gift shops had expensive ones. Dollar stores discounted types. I began the new year penciling in appointments on what I hung on the wall in my home office. Meanwhile I enjoy tropical scenes.

StudyFinds tells me that I have lots of company in this loving embrace of analog:

“Writing notes in notebooks tops the list at 32%, followed by reading printed books at 31%. Paper calendars claim 28%, while board games and puzzles attract 27%. Physical alarm clocks, chosen specifically to keep phones out of bedrooms, rank at 27%.”

The payoff from stepping out of the digital world is a feeling of being in control. Yes, a kind of boundary-setting. With that comes stress-reduction. Somehow, about 30 years of aging has dropped away.

Now I carry with me a tiny notebook and a pen. It grounds me to jot things down. At lunch with two friends today I was all ready to take note, literally, where the used-CD store was. Another embrace of analog. However, one jumped the gun and texted me the address.

This treasuring of analog could become one of those game-changer trends. That, StudyFinds reports, is being headed by GenZ.

Who knows, carefully written, both in thought and penmanship, letters could come back. The oldest of the Boomers, when I was in college that’s what we devoted so much time to, both penning them and savoring what arrived in the clunky mailboxes. A classmate had six different kinds of stationary. She sold sets of letter/envelope for 25-cents.

Along with that could be the return of paper greeting cards. At age 11 I sold Wallace Brown assortments. Peddled them from door to door. Was a high-producer in Hudson County, New Jersey. Here in Lucas County, Ohio someone could set up that kind of business at a farmers’ market. Yes, there are endless opportunities in analog for solopreneurs at this time when there are so few jobs and gigs. Develop supply chains with low-cost producers.

Eventually those who walk into my apartment could have the experience of being in a more simple time. That signals: Relax, we are old-fashioned here.