The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter

by David Sax

The most commonly floated solution to this, which is still in the early stages of research, is so-called analog computing. This would rely not on the exact binary calculations of 1’s and 0’s flowing through silicon chips, but on more approximate calculations, which recognize patterns while using far less energy.

“People are so attracted to [screens], and pulled into [screens], but we realize there’s an impoverishment of senses,”

The world is analog, and digital is always a representation,”

“Digital is not reality,” Shapiro said, “it’s the most convenient way with machines we have that we can approximate reality. Moving from analog to digital is always a process of throwing things away.

sociable technology always disappoints, because it promises what it cannot deliver. “It promises friendship but can only deliver performance,” she wrote in her seminal book Alone Together. “Do we want to be in the business of manufacturing friends that will never be friends?” A machine taken as a friend, Turkle wrote, demeans the very notion of friendship itself.