In Praise of the Analog Renaissance
6 min readDec 17, 2022
By Matthew A. MacDonald
What’s Old is New Again
I love that members of Generation Z — currently the largest generation, made up of people born between 1996 and 2010 — seem to be discovering many of the older analog technologies I grew up with, and apparently loving them.
As someone who grew up in the 1990s and lived through the massive transition from . . .
- cameras that use actual film to digital cameras,
- rotary-dial telephones to VoIP phones and smart phones,
- dial-up internet to fiberoptic internet,
- Usenet discussion forums and electronic bulletin boards to modern social media platforms,
- vinyl records to cassette tapes to CDs to Napster to legal music streaming services and digital downloads,
- computer software you used to have to buy for $1500 that you can only rent now (known as a subscription, probably so you don’t think too much about the fact that you don’t own it),
- VHS and Betamax to LaserDisc to DVD to BluRay,
- video rental stores and cable TV to streaming services,
- and even typewriters to standalone electronic word-processors to modern computers . . .
