Is it a slow return to analog?

I typed that heading on a new iMac, with my iPhone 13 charging next to it, and a Google smart display next to that. The large IKEA spotlight uses a smart bulb and I am periodically alerted to notifications from our security system. I wore my Apple Watch 5 to bed last night to track sleep patterns, yet I'm eyeing my analog watches again. Sharing my desk with this technology are two fountain pen display cases, journals and, nearby, in an IKEA Kallax shelving unit, sit most of my manual typewriters.

This morning I spent time on Facebook catching up with family and friends around the globe and sharing local animal rescue posts. I spent less than five minutes on Instagram, half of that scrolling by ads for 'filters,' whose sole intention is to hide the real you in favour of airbrushing and recreating your face into something it's definitely not. I want to tell so many heavily made-up young women to stop standing in front of public facility mirrors taking selfies. Endless. Selfies. Meanwhile, a new heavy-looking make-up that purports to help cover every flaw and wrinkle on that face of yours is receiving both accolades and condemnations.

This is what we've become in 2022; a digital realm of much fantasy and deceit.

Having said that, I like technology when it serves obvious purposes, but at what point do we tell ourselves that it's too much waste, as well?

That's it for me on social media: Facebook and short bursts on Instagram. I refuse to (re) sign-up on Twitter and have never given in to Tik-Tok. I don't know, nor am I interested in knowing about the other "social media"outlets. Not only are they predictable, they are also, for the most part, time-wasters.

The real world, or, what I am referring to these days as the tactile world, is a far more interesting place to be. While I appreciate reading posts from many engaging accounts on Instagram, it's the in-between fillers that are doing me in. What possesses a young, intelligent, woman in her early 30s to post a ten second story video zooming in and out on a wine glass?

We've seen wine glasses. We know what they look like. What was the point?

I wonder if anyone else thinks this way, or is it just me?

I have since turned off my Apple Watch and it sits on our dresser. Last week, I succumbed to purchasing a Swatch watch. I didn't own a Swatch watch even in the 1980s, but this MOMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York) series appealed to me. One of the watches in the series is shown in the accompanying photo and it's also the one I bought directly from Swatch.

Swatch teamed up with MOMA and created a series of rather artistic Swatch watches. While I am an admirer of Van Gogh, and the Swatch in this series is Starry Night, it just didn't have the, well, punch, that the Klimt did.

(It also occurred to me that if I bought the Starry Night Swatch it might be an incentive to purchase another Visconti Van Gogh fountain pen (written in a previous post HERE) but in the end I decided it was the Klimt that really caught my eye.)

If you're skeptical that analog is making a return, just take a look online at the swelling numbers of users either returning to analog, or those that are being introduced to analog for the first time. And by analog I mean those interested in handwritten journals, fountain pens, fountain pen inks, quality papers, pencils, and typewriters, to name just a few.

If you've been writing on photocopier paper, or notebooks from the dollar store, try a small notebook from Clairefontaine, or Rhodia, for instance. Both companies make very small notebooks that are great to test whether or not you like the feel of the quality paper. Better still, try an inexpensive under $20. fountain pen, like the Platinum Preppy, that comes with different colours of ink. Last summer I bought a friend the Preppy to try. She loved it, and went on to buy another.

It's good to try new 'old' things again, or perhaps for the first time. What are your thoughts on this?