Noise 2.0
I wrote in a Blog a few weeks ago about the move back to
analogue when I came across a guy who was spending his spare time converting
all his CD’s to Vinyl to reintroduce Noise back into what he was hearing. I
also talked about the decline of the digital watch – when an impromptue survey
at a technology conference found that less than 5% of the delegates were
wearing digital watches – although nearly everybody owed up to the fact that
they had owned one at some time.
This weekend I was reading a piece in a magazine that was
talking about the suprising increase in sales of camera film and the
reneissance of the second hand camera market as photographers are moving back
to analogue film to capture the ‘softness’ of the image. Fed up with the
‘perfection’ of digital and the manipulation that is needed/expected the true
skill of the photogtapher is dissapearing.
Another interesting sign is the trend of moving back to cash
and away from card transactions. One of the interesting results of the credit
crunch and subsequent economic crisis is that people are moving back to cash
and governments around the world are having to review their production of cash
– in the UK this has resulted in a rise in the demand for £5 notes. In the US a
friend in a small upmarket fashion shop was having to take upwards of $5000
home everynight as the shop had no facility for cash deposit as historically
the customers had only ever used credit cards.
My thoughts, again, came back to the humble letter. If there
is this huge move back to analogue then surely, with proper stimulation and
marketing, there could be pheonix effect on the mailing industry. I must admit
to being increasingly frustrated with the amount of email that now gets through
the junk filter and on any morning I find myself having to delete 30 – 50
emails which are of no interest to me which takes 10 – 15 minutes of my time
and as I have previously discussed an amount of carbon as each email is
responsible for around 5 – 9 grams of carbon.
Technology for the last 10 years has come to dominate our
lives, taking more and more control of our everyday lives – whether this is
through the way we communicate, our ability to create and changing our
behaviour. This move back to ‘analogue’ seems to me to be about regaining
control of our lives and actions – re-establishing our skills and capabilities.
I would be interested to hear of any examples of ‘noise’
coming back into your lives.
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