Analog

The MIT Press Essential Knowledge

by Robert Hassan

Why, surrounded by screens and smart devices, we feel a deep connection to the analog—vinyl records, fountain pens, Kodak film, and other nondigital tools.

We’re surrounded by screens; our music comes in the form of digital files; we tap words into a notes app. Why do we still crave the “realness” of analog, seeking out vinyl records, fountain pens, cameras with film? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Robert Hassan explores our deep connection to analog technology. Our analog urge, he explains, is about what we’ve lost from our technological past, something that’s not there in our digital present. We’re nostalgic for what we remember indistinctly as somehow more real, more human. Surveying some of the major developments of analog technology, Hassan shows us what’s been lost with the digital.

Along the way, he discusses the appeal of the 2011 silent, black-and-white Oscar-winning film The Artis t ; the revival of the non-e-book book; the early mechanical clocks that enforced prayer and worship times; and the programmable loom. He describes the effect of the typewriter on Nietzsche’s productivity, the pivotal invention of the telegraph, and the popularity of the first televisions despite their iffy picture quality.
The transition to digital is marked by the downgrading of human participation in the human-technology relationship. We have unwittingly unmoored ourselves, Hassan warns, from the anchors of analog technology and the natural world. Our analog nostalgia is for those ancient aspects of who and what we are.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Essays, Technology

272 pages, Paperback

Published January 3, 2023

About the author

Robert Hassan is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of The Condition of Digitality, The Age of Distraction, and other books.

Reviews

[Talbot Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this is a great introduction to the topic of analog technology, though more specifically it is an introduction as to why we feel we need such technology in our lives. While Hassan never gives a perfectly clear definition of what analog is (the precise notion was still unclear after two readings, even with the glossary), we get the sense that it describes a continuous technology with human resonance. This resonance stems from the fact that it parallels something in humans or in nature; for instance, an airplane's wing has an analog in a bird's wing, and a shield has its analog in a turtle's shell. Furthermore, analog resonates because we see a clear cause-effect relationship, and very little is hidden from us in its operation. Unlike the computer, which is a black box, we see how the hammer beats a nail into wood or a winch pulls an object along. These have direct equivalences to human movement, and so we intimately understand what the technology is doing. That we have evolved alongside our analog technologies for tens of thousands of years is important, especially if one buys Hassan's anthropology: that humans and technology embody one another. We are, in a sense, technological creatures, a relationship that Hassan describes as one of "mutual constitution."

The argument follows that, if we separate ourselves from these technologies, we become alienated from some aspect of ourselves. The reason why people go in for analog technologies like vinyl or fountain pens is because we sense a possible atonement with our technologies. These technologies complement and complete us in a way that Spotify or a keyboard cannot. Digital technologies (discontinuous technologies without analogue to be found in nature that simultaneously collapse time and space—again, not the most elegant or parsimonious definition) obscure this relationship, making our connection with technology harder to see and understand. For instance, while it is fairly clear what we are doing when we put pen to paper and mail our mother, we don't have the requisite neural capacity or framework to understand simultaneously communicating with one million people across the world in half a second. The human being simply cannot fathom this. The technology seems as magic.

A secondary line of argument running throughout this book concerns automation. Having evolved alongside technology, humans have largely been humans-as-makers. We invent things to solve problems, fulfill needs, and satiate desires. In the past, we had a direct hand in making things, such that craft and artistry sprang up around all objects. Automation, however, takes this process almost entirely out of our hands. "Automation automatically places a space, a breach, between human and machine . . . And the ability to program a machine, to give over and expand roles to it at the expense of the worker, constituted a major step away from analog and toward digital." So, not only are we alienated from our inventions, we are alienated also from the very process of creation. Who knows the full effects of such a disjunction?

Aside from roundabout definitions, the book jumps around a great deal, and not always logically. Several of my annotations express a great deal of confusion as to how Hassan took us from one subject to another. Still another issue lies in claim-making without substantial evidence. One example of this that sticks in my craw is this one: "As a 'drastic' extension of our capacities, writing shaped and transformed our entire environment, psychic and material, and was directly responsible for the rise of such disparate phenomena as nationalism, the Reformation, the assembly line, the Industrial Revolution, the concept of causality, Cartesian and Newtonian and Einsteinian conceptions of the universe, perspective in art, narrative chronology in literature, and Freudianism as a psychological mode of introspection . . . (italics mine)" Pardon me? One would expect such a claim to be backed up by several paragraphs of explanation, though one would be wrong. There are other such claims in the book, which is a shame, as the book is very beautiful and resonant on many levels (for instance, I've never read a more touching Acknowledgements section).

Definitely, this book is worth considering at long length, especially in a reflective light. How is your relationship with technology?

[Sean Kiefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Digital we hardly understand at all, but mostly we unthinkingly act as if it is the solution to all our problems“ encapsulates Robert Hassan’s manifesto for the analog. Paradoxical questions and answers make up the bulk of a compelling book that articulates something we often don’t—yet all feel at some point. Psychologically, analog devices and media generate an emotional response, contacting sensory receptors and stimulating what Buckminster Fuller dubbed synotropy. In other words, there is distinct synaptic feedback to analog’s tactile multiplicity—feedback that is endangered. Analog is a commentary via case analyses of various analog-digital transitions and subsequent implications. Hassan effectively illustrates, to the anthropologically-informed, this sterilization and why it detracts from material culture. Things as basic as our primitive cuneiform written tradition are found to be pervasive in their reach into affected cultural devices through Hassan’s thoroughly referential writing. He writes from the corner of anthropology and philosophy in his exploration of a postmodern technocratic takeover. Transfusing thought so high order into a digestible sub-200 pages is remarkable—but digestible is the extent of it. Readers en masse will struggle with many of Hassan’s connections, the messages of which can be hard to follow (although this category of technical philosophy does warrant refined syntax). To me Analog fell short only in terms of this barrier to entry. Otherwise, it’s an enlightening read that can really reset your focus about analog culture—vinyl records, Polaroid pictures, encyclopedia, Apollo space shuttles, and the telegraph all helped build up humanity’s agency on materiality. This agency is now transgressing tangibility, and calls for even more preservationist literature like Analog.

[John Maher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book as I thought it would discuss the modern obsession with analog items, like record players, cassette tapes, board games, etc. However, it really only touched on those themes. This book read more like an academic paper than a non-fiction book, but I guess I should have predicted that since it is related to MIT.

The book discusses analog technology/devices and our relationship to them, but really only in the first and last chapters. The middle portion of the book (for some reason) discusses the advancement of human communication technology through the millennia, from the written word to the printing press to the telegram to the phone to modern computing. And it discusses it at length. I think the author was trying to illustrate how each advancement strayed further from what we consider “analog”. But at times it felt like the book should have been called “Communications” or something.

There were some interesting thoughts that the book proposed. One was how we appreciate analog devices because they’re analogous (heh) to the basic human form; we can make the connection from walking to running to a car moving, or how we can “see” a record player’s needle playing the music. This goes out-the-window with the “black box” nature of digital technology. Another topic discussed the concerns of becoming too physically and cognitively reliant on digital devices and media.

Overall this book was a slog to get through and wasn’t what I was hoping for. In retrospect, I could have got the gist of the book by just reading the first and last chapters and probably would have enjoyed it more.

[Grace Panek · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Life has no point beyond existence and existence is never questioned, because what would be the point in a life of pre-programmed experience?”

i was clearly under the wrong impression of what this book was supposed to be about, which i believe is fairly my own doing. this was an interesting look at the history of analog technologies and the transition from analog to digital in the modern age, and i learned a handful of fun facts that i’m never going to get to use. where this book falls shorts for me is with the last chapter. i found that analysis of our back-and-forth relationship with digital technology the most fascinating part of this long essay and wish it would’ve dedicated greater time to exploring the effects of it on our natural, social, and political worlds.

3.5/5 stars

[Audrey Kalman · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed this lil one a lot, but kind of stating the obvious...but eloquently!

Memorably,
"The White Album and the LAMY fountain pen are material things that connect us to the material world and ultimately to nature and the cosmos." (61)

"Humans passed from the time before recorded history to the time of history and became part of history because it would be recorded." (74)

[Roman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and thought-provoking ideas, especially in redefining what "analog" even means besides "non-digital". Most of the ideas after that were technological determinism, re-spun. Some weak arguments at the end, including that the rise of automation in the workplace explains the obesity epidemic (?).

[Josh Finnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really loved the beginning of this book, but the ending just ruined it for me. Felt like it could have been a real winner without the last chapter, but then again I don't know how to better wrap it up.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting but takes a long time explaining very simple concepts and going over anecdotes and referencing things that don't need to be referenced. Could be a lot shorter and a lot more entertaining.

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some useful and basic thought on what is the meaning of “analog” and how humans’ relationship to technology has molded us historically and has now dramatically changed with the digital world. A little too wordy in the early chapters, a little too sparse later on.

[Liza · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF @ 9%. 2.5/5

[Reader1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

inspiring, fascinating, informative, concise

[Dave Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

My head hurts still thinking about this, very awesome

[will ! · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is my niche fact-drop book that I like to quote. Some of the sections were too word-y and smart for me at the time, but maybe I'll come back and reread it at another date.