The Return to Analog

I've been noticing the same thing, though I'd frame it as analog getting more appealing largely because it's slower than digital. The demand for a slower pace is driven by two factors imo:

Need: People can’t move so fast all the time, so they will dedicate parts of their lives to slow down and process what’s actually happening in their outer and inner worlds. It will involve activities like creative hobbies, fitness, and meditation.

Nostalgia: When people aren’t sure if the future will be better than the present, the past seems even more appealing. We remember the best of the past. While we swipe glass all the time now, we used to push buttons, pound on keys, and shake hands. It was a more tactile era, and we miss it. Vinyl sales have gone up from 1 million in 2006 to 49 million in 2023 [1]. Streaming will still be the dominant source of delivering music, but vinyl represents something else. (I believe most of them end up being framed on people's walls, to be clear)

I wrote more about this here: https://herbertlui.net/the-return-of-slow/

I suspect more people will be interested in writing by hand, for example, so I've been working with my partner to make a journal. Very analog, very slow!

[1] https://www.statista.com/chart/7699/lp-sales-in-the-united-s...

Someone's about to make a killing making CRTs again.