2025: An Analog Year
In the aftermath of a year defined by both profound pain and unexpected blessings, I find myself entering the new year with a hunger for a quieter, more deliberate existence. The chaos and intensity of 2024 taught me many lessons, among them the need to slow down, to take a deep breath, to reconnect with what is tangible and to rediscover the joys of the analog world. As I enter 2025, my New Year’s resolution is simple: to embrace an “analog year,” away from the seductive glow of screens that constantly illuminate our faces. This is the year I take back control over my life from the grips of digital technology.
This decision wasn’t born of nostalgia but out of sanity-saving necessity. Over the past year, I turned to screens for both their distracting and numbing powers during my darkest moments, only to find that they magnified my anxiety. The short term relief of forgetting my woes was gone the moment I turned away from those brightly lit screens. In contrast, the times I picked up a pen or opened a physical book or grabbed coffee or a beer with a friend, I felt a calm that no digital device could replicate. These moments of analog respite became my lifelines, reminding me of the joy in slowing down, in creating and consuming with intention, free of distractions.
To embark on this analog journey, I am making a conscious effort to return to the fundamentals: handwritten essays, printed books, physical CDs and face-to-face interactions. I am also going to be limiting the amount of time I keep my damn phone in my pocket. I do not need this extra, phantom limb on my being at every moment of my life. This is the year that I make the deliberate rejection of the fleeting for the enduring, of the virtual for the tangible. And it is, I hope, a way to reclaim a sense of control over my time and mind.
One of the most powerful lessons I relearned in 2024 was the catharsis of writing. During the months I was unemployed, I often turned to pen and paper to process my thoughts and emotions. Whether I was crafting poems, jotting down ideas, or simply scrawling incoherent sentences into a journal, the act of writing by hand felt transformative. It anchored me in the present and gave form to the chaos brewing within me. The physicality of writing—the scratch of the pen, the texture of the paper—was a grounding experience that no keyboard, even my fancy mechanical keyboard, could replicate. The benefits of writing by hand are many and far-reaching. I hope you join me in coming back to the old ways of thinking by writing.
This year, I want to take this practice further. I’ve stocked up on notebooks, pens and pencils; they are simply the best tools that we know of for creativity and reflection. Instead of typing notes or reminders, I’ll write them down in some Field Notes that I keep in my back pocket. Instead of firing off meaningless texts, I’ll increase the amount of handwritten letters I write. And instead of scrolling through endless feeds of drivel, I’ll keep a daily journal, capturing the small details of life so easily forgotten in the rush of the digital age. Any thought, however small, will go down on paper. I might even write my essays first by hand. They always turn out better that way.
Another area where I plan to go analog is music. In an era where entire discographies are a click away, I’ve come to miss that tangible and intentional connection that physical music offers. There’s a ritual to pulling a CD off the shelf, sliding it into a player and listening to an album from start to finish. You get to admire the cover art and more wholly support the artist. Moreover, you get to own the music, which will become more important as our world continues down the dark path of censorship (Spotify, for instance, took down many albums of modern Russian orchestras because of the war in Ukraine—as if it’s the orchestra’s fault). Music demands presence and attention, qualities always lost in the shuffle of streaming services. Not to mention that streaming services like Spotify refuse to deliver high quality audio files to us audiophiles, despite how much we pay to rent their music.
This year, I plan to curate a small but meaningful collection of CDs. Each will carry a story, a memory, or a mood. Playing them will not just be about the music but about the act of listening—truly listening—without the distractions of autoplay algorithms or notification pings. I cannot articulate just how excited I am for this experience.
One of the most exciting aspects of my analog year will be my commitment to photography—with a real camera. I used to be an avid photographer (a sports photographer, ironically). This year, I plan to invest in a high-quality camera to capture life’s moments in a way that feels deliberate and artful. Unlike a phone, which is the greatest portal to distraction, a camera is singular in its purpose: to capture memories. The act of composing a shot, of adjusting the lens to find the perfect frame, is inherently mindful. And the images it produces are imbued with a depth and texture that no phone can replicate. To paraphrase Hamlet: “there shall be no more selfies!”
By stepping away from phone photography, I hope to experience life’s moments more fully. Whether it’s a family gathering, a breathtaking landscape, or the quiet beauty of an ordinary day, I want to preserve these memories without the temptation to check notifications or swipe through apps. It’s not just about the aesthetic—it’s about being present in the moment when you press the shutter button.
And lastly, of course, will be a total rethinking of my cell phone ownership. I admit that I have not worked out all the kinks in this plan yet. But here is what I do know. In an article coming out soon in The Public Discourse, I argue that technology has invaded areas of everyday living that fundamentally do not need to be tethered to digital technology. There are so many mundane things that can be navigated completely and totally without our smartphones. And we should insist on that. As one author put it, you do not need your smartphone. You may want your smartphone, but you do not need one. I am still investigating whether I can successfully switch to a dumbphone with minimal interruptions to my work, but in all other areas where a smartphone is not fundamentally necessary, I shall avoid it. That means leaving it in the car or at home to do things like shopping or going to synagogue.
I recently reread Cal Newport’s great book Digital Minimalism. You should read it too. In it, Cal suggests blocking off times where you make yourself readily available to chat with friends and family. Only during certain hours, he argues, should you be willing to stop what you are doing to answer your phone to chat. This is not because you want to be that frustrating friend who is “hard to get a hold of,” but because we all deserve the freedom to not feel the pressure to respond to the speed of digital life. Digital technology makes you feel like the “now” is the most important aspect of existence. That is not true. You do not have to respond to that WhatsApp now. You do not have to answer every time the phone rings. You do not have to keep your phone on the table in front of you at all times. You certainly do not have to check the score in the middle of a lecture or dinner date. Freedom is both the freedom to and freedom from. We have to remember that. And I plan to recover it. More on this to come.
I don’t expect this journey to be without its challenges. The digital world is relentless in its pull, and the allure of convenience is hard to resist. But I’m choosing to embrace the analog life not because it is easy, but because it is worthwhile. This year, I want to feel the weight of a pen in my hand, the crackle of a CD as it begins to play, the click of a camera capturing a fleeting moment—and to know that I was fully there for it.
So here’s to 2025: a year of deliberate choices, ink-stained hands, pencil shavings, meaningful connections and unfiltered experiences. A year of reclaiming the quiet joys and rich textures of a life well-lived. A year where, instead of losing myself in a screen, I might just find myself in the world around me.
Well written comprehensive piece that comes from the heart and kept my full attention from start to finish.