Tired of AI, people are committing to the analog lifestyle in 2026
cnn.com
cnn.com
I'm curious about the distinction you're making here. If we accept mainstream uses of LLMs, such as writing online content or generating images, why is music different?
As for the surveillance stuff, outside some geek bubbles, it's really not something that people care about. The prevailing narrative is that crime is getting worse and when the push comes to shove, most residents want more policing, more license plate readers, etc.
Remember: most people aren't STEM and don't have the money or skillsets to just decide to, as a New Years Resolution, to de-google. A Ring doorbell cam is a non-trivial home upgrade, etc.
From new reports it seems Denmark is rolling back a lot of e-learning/screen usage. I hope the same comes to pass in the US. My daughter gets an iPad for her high school and while its locked down it is incredibly distracting. It is also restrictive. You can't read your notes and make summaries and write your own interpretation of what you've read without switching context between apps. As a whole I think its a bad option for learning.
A lot of folks really underrate how inferior digital technology is to paper, in many ways. Digital has some advantages (e.g. copying, transmission, physical size), but is grossly inferior in other ways (flexibility, engaging spatial awareness, etc.).
I think AI is just a tipping point and an easy target.
If it isn’t representing something with a continuously various signal then it ain’t analog!
4. Designating the original or traditional form of something that has a digital or computer-mediated counterpart.
5. colloquial (chiefly humorous). Esp. of a person: unaware of or unaffected by computer technology or digital communications; outdated, old-fashioned.
I'm not sure I'll ever click a CNN link again.
There might be a browser plugin to automatically do this, like exist with old.reddit.com.
CNN still doesn't have much worth reading, certainly not this. This isn't a real trend, this is a party a friend of the author threw.
javascript:window.open('https://archive.ph/newest/'+location.href.split('?')%5B0%5D,'_blank')Chatbots are just the latest in a long line of everything digital being little more than a rent-seeking, ad-riddled, privacy-invading scam.
The work required to protect yourself from it all is an arms race, and LLMs only dialed up the cost.
The list goes on, and all too often rather than fixing habits they just consume in a different sense until they lapse and go back to hold habits. By trying to be the opposite of 'thing' they still let 'thing' control them. Although the fact all this author's examples are still posting about it all on tiktok doesnt have me sold one bit on them healthily disconnecting.
I had to quit alcohol for a year+ before being able to reintroduce it in small and manageable ways. Some people have to quit forever. Not an unreasonable metaphor for device addiction.
Plenty does. There's a trend in consumer technology to remove friction, like that's always a good thing, but it isn't. Sometimes an inherent limit it what's needed to keep some natural impulse in check. Remove the limit, and the impulse becomes problematic.
And that's not to mention some technology is literally designed to be addictive, to hit the same psychological buttons as gambling.
Basically, a lot of technology turns things into problems of self-control, but people only have so much. It's not reasonable to blame them for not having more self-control than they ever needed to have before.
For the majority, there is no healthy relationship with ‘technology’ — in the smartphone and modern web sense — until technology stops trying to make them into addicts.
In the 2000s you could literally use google to scrape for open camera feeds; it was just internet-grep. Random people had extensive pages about their random hobbies. The actual internet was buried when the search engines decided to ignore queries and guide traffic, and eventually mostly disappeared. Back then there was more variety on youtube; there was more variety on myspace than is now on facebook.
People spend more time on the internet now, but it's just scrolling versions of the same 20 stories of the day linked from the same 50 sites on the same 5 social network feeds. Even those 50 sites are all owned by the same 10 people, which means you get between one and two self-interested perspectives on those 20 stories. The rest of the internet is filled with slop and the rest of your feed (from real people you don't even really know) is repoasts that they imitated from seeing them updooted somewhere else. It's positively claustrophobic.
The catch is that they eliminated public space and made unmediated communication suspicious and borderline illegal, so where are you going to go? Find somebody on an app to hang out with? Watch some netflix? Isn't that still the internet? Make your kids put down their phones and talk to you? How are you going to have a party if you don't post it on facebook?
Poorer discoverability through search doesn't mean the internet is smaller.
Rather, what will happen is a bunch of us will willingly stop participating and stepping away from the technological singularity. A bit like the Amish, this time not for religious reasons. Let the urbanites enjoy their AI-generated virtual realities, with work, sex, and food from the comfort of your phone, competing for fewer and more bullshit office jobs creating more addictive apps; I just want to live on a farm with solar panels, grow tomatoes and write code for fun.
> with solar panels, grow tomatoes
> and write code for fun.
Back in 2000 I cudda made a song outta that, recorded it to mp3, and uploaded it to Napster.
25 years later? aren't many places to upload naked audio to.
You can seed a torrent and put it on w/e pirate site is cool right now.
On a separate note, I must say that starting to read your comment, I was sure it'll be going towards "Back in 2000 I cudda made a song outta that... Now, in 2025, I just use suno"
this has always been true, and might be a real reason to have public standards?
"It’s hard to quantify just how widespread the phenomenon is, but certain notably offline hobbies are exploding in popularity."
That does seem like a really big assumption though.
If the AI industry takes a hit because people are returning to offline hobbies, it’s a signal we’ve been building the wrong things.
The article almost encourages this interpretation, although I'd praise it for at least acknowledging the "performance" part.
It seems to mash consumerism, commercial Social Media and GenAI into one though.
Still, I try to see the positive side, and I think there certainly could be such a trend.
No idea if it's just a small part of people going against the grain, or a broader shift.
Regarding media addiction, there is a pattern that would be kind of similar, the large cohort of elderly people who are addicted to media and the commercial web, compared to the comparatively smaller portion of younger people falling victim.
Among my "elder millenial" friends, I can only say that abstinence from doomscrolling and modern tech (especially smartphones and SM) seems to correlate with integrity and smartness.
Also, "knitting kits" were not a thing for most of my life. You'd just buy yarn needles and yarn. This is not some kind of a craft where you need dozens of implements.
The kit is pretty much a product of the TikTok / YT influencer era. Indeed, a typical kit will often contain needles, yarn, and a... link to a video you can watch:
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Knitting-Kit-Beginners-Acces...
Social Media and E-commerce + dropshipping, optimized supply chains etc brought it to a new level though, in all kinds of domains.
Audio equipment, musical instruments, sports or home accessories, for example.
Is it so unusual for "desktop monitors" to be bigger than a MacBook that it needs to be pointed out?
- I have not had a cell phone in 5+ years
- I do not use LLMs at all outside of occasional experimentation to understand the current capabilities I am knowingly giving up
- I subscribe to no streaming services, favoring my VHS/DVD/Blu-ray/laserdisc/vinyl/cassette/cdrom/cartridge collection
- I have an extensive collection of paper, books, magazines, etc to browse and inspire me.
- I have an extensive board game collection to play when friends are around.
- I only use desktop computers at home, keeping me offline and present when not in front of one.
- I have 40+ pre-internet game consoles hooked up in my garage to 25+ CRT TVs, along with a pinball machine, 3 arcade cabinets, and an OG VGA PC gaming station.
- I have an EE/craft corner with soldering irons, 3D printers, hand tools, and everything I need to make a lot of my own stuff at home.
- I have an extensive collection of mechanical puzzles to keep my mind constantly solving new deductive reasoning problems with no screen time
- I rarely leave home with any electronics, favoring an analog watch, cash, paper maps, and recently, a film camera.
- I exclusively rely on, mostly self hosted, open source software for all my work so I am the one in control of what it does and how I use it. I also FOSS license 100% of my work as well.
- I co-run two tech companies from Silicon Valley
- I regularly invent and deploy new security defense tactics and tools
- I hang out with maybe 10 IRL friends every week on average
- I travel often, including internationally. (I do take a tiny laptop with me when traveling)
- I have a family
Turns out, all of the above balances out just fine, and I am so much happier keeping as much of my life and mind grounded in the real world as possible.
Anecdotally, I have friends who have recently bought turntables out of the blue and gotten into vinyl. Other friends who never had any interest in my analog cameras are asking about film. My wife has even switched from scrolling Instagram at night to working on a crossword book with a pencil.
None of them have put it exactly this way, but in divisive times, I think social media is just exhausting. And now you can't even really tell what's real.
I think if AI succeeds in this way, it's going to be extremely bad.