Going Analogue in a Post-Digital Society

Abstract

In an age where digital technologies permeate nearly every aspect of daily life, a curious countertrend has emerged: a deliberate return to analogue practices and experiences. Whether it’s jotting thoughts in a leather-bound notebook, sending handwritten letters, or choosing a mechanical over a smart watch, many individuals are embracing the physical and the slow. This is the landscape of the post-digital society. As Nicholas Negroponte observed in 1998, “the digital revolution is over”—digital technologies are no longer novel but deeply embedded in the everyday.This chapter explores the motivations behind the analogue resurgence as a response to the overwhelming pace, abstraction, and ephemerality of digital life, revealing how materiality, slowness, and sensory engagement offer forms of resistance, meaning-making, and connection in a post-digital society. These shifts have significant implications for critical marketing, as they challenge dominant narratives of innovation, reconfigure consumer-brand relationships, and open up new avenues for research on value creation, authenticity, and consumer agency in a post-digital society. </p