Going old-fashioned
Call me a luddite but here are ways I’m un-tech-ifying my life
Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it’s like to grow up in the world we live in today. It’s fascinating how different one’s experience can be with an age gap as small as two years. One very concrete example is comparing next year’s college grads to last year’s class. Next year’s class will have used AI tools throughout their four years of schooling versus last year’s, which had these tools only towards the tail end of their time in college. My coworkers and friends who fall into this latter category tend to approach AI tools more similarly to me and my cohort, where we’re puzzling through how to best adopt them and not yet “native” users. In contrast, that former category is truly AI-native in that they barely know how to function without!
Anyway, I’m not trying to get deep into AI tools today (or ever, probably, in this forum). My broader thoughts have been on technology in general. It feels that in 2026, getting deep is increasingly challenging. AI or not, it’s easier than ever to get a fast answer to questions that would have once led to meandering, nuanced, deep consideration and debate. I find myself fighting this tide by intentionally finding ways to bring back behaviours that are often deemed “old fashioned.”
Here’s a few of the things I’ve done recently and why I’ve found them valuable:
Hand-written cards.
Whether for weddings or thank yous or other occasions, I always try to buy a nice card and write at least ~7 sentences of greeting. It’s so easy to pull up Venmo or PayPal to send someone a gift. While that’s very utilitarian (and I embrace it in tandem with a card), it feels like something is missing in the gifting ritual without a tangible item changing hands. Nostalgically, I always conjure up the image of someone reading an old letter from their better half and holding it up to smell it, imagining the other person writing it.
A home phone.
Like a landline. Remember those? Granted, ours is not a literal landline; it’s a VoIP. But I love it. It brings back the era when a household had a shared communication point with the outside world. It democratizes access to us when we’re at home—call us at this one phone number, and you’ll get someone from the household.
It’s kind of refreshing to have a singular access point as a family, instead of others having to always make a choice on who to contact. I struggle with this whenever we need to set up plans with other couples—it’s annoying to have to create a four person group chat. Why couldn’t every family just have a distribution list style access point? (Landline aside, we also have a joint email and I wish it was easier to use it for more things.)
Pen-and-paper grocery list.
I’ve gone back and forth on this one. Sometimes I think the digital list works better because I can add to it whenever I want, no matter where I am. Other times, I feel that the digital clutter has gotten out of hand and will never be wrangled under control. Paper lists, in contrast, are incredibly satisfying to recycle once I’m done. And it’s also easier than struggling with my phone while shopping. It’s nice to cross things off, be tactile, and also easily share the list. Having the list somewhere where everyone in the household can see it helps tremendously with empowering all of us to contribute and also helps if there’s handoff between us to go pick up items we need.
Hand-written journal.
Every night before bed, I journal. I’ve done this for almost five years now. I’ve recently invested in nice pens to make this experience even more enjoyable. Other than avoiding the harmful effects of blue light on sleep quality, journaling by hand also gives me a chance to slow down. I can type a lot faster than I can write, so being restricted by my writing speed forces my brain to start to unwind.
Are there things that you purposefully do to be more un-tech-ified? I’d love to hear about them!