Digital Pleasures for Analog Living

Ever since I’d read that millennials had an analog childhood and a digital adulthood I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Even years later as the world is changing and technology and the internet is changing life and people as we know it, it remains my tether. There is something beyond a world that increasingly values the unreal. 

I grew up scouting the neighborhood on my bike. Knowing where the frogs were and watching their transformation from tadpoles to four legged creatures. Having dirt under my fingernails. Living outside in the hot Texas sun and coming home only for food. There was so much wonder to be had. 

The internet was a distant thing. Yes in kindergarten we did use computers to type sometimes. And my father worked at IBM and has a patent for developing part of the dial tone, so he had computers at home. It was a treat to play Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? And make art with Kid Pix. But that wasn’t everyday life. I was fully grounded in the reality of the world- where my mother read the newspaper every Sunday, we met up with friends in person (I had no choice, I was in school), and went to the library to check out masses of books. 

Even growing up I wasn’t tethered to the computer or a phone. Cell phones weren’t a thing until I was in high school. And then my mother and I shared one but still had a landline. And though I had a computer it never connected to the internet. So I wasn’t cruising around all day to alleviate boredom. I connected at friend’s houses where we clustered around each other in chat rooms making up lies. Or daring each other to look at something grotesque and haunting on Rotten.com. But it never took the place of actual living. 

And now the world has shifted and everything increasingly is online. Banking, schools, therapy now after covid. We were never supposed to hear what the village idiots beyond our own village idiot thought about. And now they’re talking to each other via the internet and running for office, making religious and political groups. And other countries are using the Western world’s dependence on technology to sow chaos and misinformation. It’s chilling. 

Since I got hit by a car seven years ago I’ve been unable to work a “normal” job or have employment. So I made art in the meantime and opened up a small business to make it all legal to sell. Marketing is the biggest challenge. People love my work in person, but you have to market online too. And with social media apps they constantly change the rules of engagement so creators are having to jump through hoops to get their work seen. 

And I hate it. The more time I spend online the worse my mental health is. 

For me, the best “content” to engage with is the kind that inspires you to make your own. To end the act of doom scrolling and encourage us to live in the present. This is my hope for Digital Pleasures for Analog Living. To get back to creativity and also engage with the world outside our screens, as well as analyze and digest what’s going on with our current times. Or perhaps I just wanted to make a title that addresses the fact that I am putting content online that’s seen through a screen. From my life and my screen to yours! But hopefully this is a brief corner of the internet that isn’t part of the problem.