It’s become a familiar sight, a full table of friends or family, out for dinner, each person looking down at their phone rather than taking in their surroundings, laughing, or starting a conversation. While digital advancements have changed lives in an infinite number of good ways (a map on your phone when you’re lost in a strange city, the wonder of Facetime when you’re missing someone), those advancements don’t always feel like progress when they create a barrier and a lost connection to the world.
Frank Possemato, adjunct faculty in the English department, is self-publishing a new workbook on Amazon that offers an antidote. “How to Live an Analog Life in a Digital World” helps readers consider the influence of electronic devices on their lives and suggests reasonable ways to find a little freedom from them.
Possemato isn’t anti-technology. He makes a living teaching online. He also met his wife through a penpal website. “We did write physical letters,” he said, “but we wouldn’t have met without the internet.”
Possemato is, though, advocating for a quieter, deeper consciousness. “The digital world is the infinite world inside your device, and the analog world is the one-second-at-a-time life happening around and inside you,” he said. He believes it’s worth paying attention to the latter. “This is about tapping into an energy that is still in the world if you want it to be.”
The workbook includes 20 activities. Possemato shared a few:
- In those moments when you reach for your device for no specific reason (while standing in a line, for example), seize the chance for reflection instead. Remember someone you miss. Connect with the things you feel deeply about. Pray. The “throwaway moments” are where a lot of our character, creativity and personality come from, Possemato said. Constantly scrolling can block the opportunities those moments present.
- This challenge is more difficult. Pick a place you like, a picture, a painting, the view from your window, or a coffee shop. Look at your chosen object or place for one hour without looking at your device. “Whatever it is, you will be bonded to it,” Possemato said. “If it’s a tree, you will never forget that tree.”
- Make time with a friend or family member to have a substantial conversation without phones, agreeing that you can’t look it up if you can’t recall a detail. “That’s the way it was before smartphones,” Possemato said. “I’m not talking about the ‘good old days.’ For a digital native, this kind of conversation could be something entirely new. And it doesn’t have to be a serious conversation, just a real one. It’s a challenge, but it doesn’t cost anything but time.”
- First thing in the morning, say something important to yourself – about what you believe, who you want to be, and what you love. “Make another ritual, other than looking at your device,” Possemato said.
Possemato has published works of poetry and short fiction. “How to Live an Analog Life” is his first nonfiction, self-help book. In keeping with his embrace of the analog, he is not promoting his book through social media. In the same spirit, he hand wrote the early drafts of the book in notebooks he bought with loose change he found at home.
Find the book on the Amazon website.