What does 'analogue' mean again?
This article was originally published in German. The English version is an automatic translation and may contain errors. The German original is authoritative.
I thought until just now that I knew what analogue meant. That something gets by without digital technology, that's clear, isn't it. That's the first association of a young adult who lives a bit with the trends, and thus also with the hype of the analogue.
As befits a journalist, I did enter the word into Google after all. Landing on the Duden website, I read first: "similar, comparable, alike, corresponding". I think to myself that I already knew that (and just didn't have it on my radar) and that the young people in my circle wouldn't use the adjective with this meaning either. Further down it says that the word in the field of IT means "continuous, seamless". Lastly, duden.de lists that the word would describe the expansion of temperature through the mercury column well. One could aptly describe a seamless, continuous process (as opposed to a digital one) with analogue – that's how one does it primarily in physics and engineering.
The background thought that the Sprachrohr editorial team had when choosing the topic, I read in this entry much later, namely in the fact that "digital" is listed as an antonym of analogue. For me that fits: analogue is what is not digital. Those are notebooks, watches with a dial and record players. The small digital camera that I was given at my First Communion confuses me a bit. It carries "digital", the supposed opposite, in its name – yet I'm unsure whether it isn't part of the analogue. Compared to our smartphones, its technical capabilities seem so limited that this camera must almost belong in a different category.
I wonder how much technology can be built into an object so that it counts as digital. What about the electronic diary of my childhood, whose technical equipment was limited to an automatism that occurred after entering the PIN to open it and a small melody?
Perhaps I should look at the predecessor of the "Digicam" to get behind the meaning of its name. The analogue camera is named as the predecessor, which stores the photos taken on film. This camera has the advantage of being able to run for a long time and also of looking stylish due to its metal casing (cf. Nikkormat from the 1970s). Nevertheless, since digital storage of photos became possible through the digital camera, it has only had value for individuals.
The counterpart to the analogue camera still used today is the disposable camera, which you can buy, for example, in a chemist's. Because each of us has infinite possibilities with our mobile phone to capture a party or a holiday, the individual photo seemingly loses significance. With the common disposable camera, attempts are limited to 25 and moreover you cannot look at the photos until they are developed at the chemist's. The photos are then not a documentation of the evening, but small memory aids for very special events that we like to tell stories about afterwards. It thus doesn't seem to be about the perfect and flawless holiday photo; rather, one wants to capture authentic and unique moments with a film camera.
Why the analogue, of which I now have a more precise idea after this research, is cool again right now among young people, I cannot say exactly. Some are certainly in a state of inner conflict. Many can no longer imagine everyday life, whether at university or when planning a trip, without the help of AI. Nevertheless, they take holiday photos deliberately with the disposable film camera or read books instead of e-books. One might think they want to escape the digital world, which will continue to develop into the unimaginable, for a while.
