By Rebecca Ceccatelli. Cover image by Naufal Farras for I’M Firenze Digest.
Boredom. Those afternoons spent at your grandparents’ house outside the city, with no TV capable of picking up digital channels. What do I do while waiting for my mom to come pick me up?
Even today, we still experience boredom. But do we really get bored like we used to? One thing is for sure— we’ve developed plenty of ways to combat boredom, and topping the list is the endless online scroll that HAUNTS us. We often fill our empty moments by diving into other people’s lives, seeking inspiration or simply using their experiences to distract ourselves from the void we seem to fear so much. But what if, one day, all things digital disappeared? What would happen if we had to return to our old, distant, almost forgotten analogue world?
This may sound like time travel, but the journey into the analogue world you’re about to read can be more relevant than ever. Would you be ready to rediscover your old habits?
5 Lost Analogue Habits We Miss in the Age of the Internet
Handwritten Letters: Tell Me You Love Me by Pen
Who doesn’t recognise the unmistakable sound of the world’s most famous iPhone notification? Every time we hear it, we instinctively reach for our phones to check for new messages, notifications, or anything else that keeps us connected with people from across the globe. Today, we land jobs on WhatsApp, start relationships on Instagram, and catch up on the news on X (which many still fondly refer to as Twitter).
But what if the only way to communicate became handwritten again? Not typed, but penned? How many of us have forgotten how to write in cursive over the years, constantly bombarded by clean, easy-to-read fonts tailored for digital media? The real challenge, however, wouldn’t just be about fonts; it would be more about the fact that we just don’t write anymore. We no longer pick up a pen to tell our friends how much we’re enjoying—or not enjoying—a holiday on a postcard. Heartfelt letters of apology have been replaced by long digital rants sent via text. And what about the anticipation of waiting for a response until the postman delivers it to your house on delivery day?
Research indicates that writing by hand actually helps us process our thoughts, encouraging us to be more intentional with our words—after all, we can’t simply delete them with an ‘erase’ key. So, if we were to go back to handwritten notes, what would be the first words you would choose to write?
Navigating with Paper Maps: Let’s Use Them!
Is this the right direction for the Duomo? A few weeks ago, an older man, probably around 80 years old, approached me in the city with a printed map. He had circled several spots and asked if he was heading in the right direction to meet her daughter, who was arriving from the USA.
I’m not exactly sure what triggered it, but my mind instantly flashed back to that map of Italy’s major highways my parents used to keep in the car for our family trips across the country. Eventually, when we bought a new car with a built-in GPS screen, the paper map disappeared. In fact, it had already started getting stuck between the back seats when the first portable GPS units made their way into our old car, plugged into the cigarette lighter for power and ready to ‘show us the way.’ However, once GPS became a standard feature in our new car, the paper map sadly vanished forever.
Some time later, I visited a friend’s house and noticed she had framed a map and hung it on her wall. This décor style also became a popular trend during the Tumblr Era of the 2010s. It seemed that maps were destined to become aesthetic pieces of interior design, losing their functional purpose. As someone who constantly struggles with directions, I’m grateful for the day Google Maps became available to me. Yet, if Google Maps were to disappear, would we start pulling those decorative maps off the walls and making them useful once again?
The Joy of Physical Books
Do you remember the moment when every book suddenly became accessible in PDF format through the first e-readers? Bookstores quickly set up corners where customers could check out the latest devices capable of holding hundreds of books all in one place. Most importantly, these digital options were more affordable because there was no need for the expensive printing process to make them available to a wide audience. Novels, dictionaries, newspapers—almost every type of publication soon favoured its digital format on compact displays that no longer required flipping pages, allowing users to scroll instead.
Not to mention the time when we were tired of even reading, so we were captivated by audiobook narrators. Through their voices, we could absorb the entire content of a book without reading a single word—except for the title on the cassette cover and the word ‘play’ on the stereo button to start it.
But if this seemed to be the future direction of what we often considered a historical object—the book—then why do libraries still exist? Why are bookstores still filled with shelves of books, and why do we continue to buy bookshelves for our homes? The answer is both and perhaps underrated: nothing hits like paper. Open that book! The smell of freshly printed pages in new schoolbooks every September, the excitement of going to the bookstore on the release day of a novel you’ve eagerly anticipated for months, and the joy of highlighting your favourite passages and scribbling notes in the margins. Even if digital versions of books were to disappear, the physical versions would remain. So why not prefer them in any case?
The Weekly TV: Why We Miss the Wait
Every Thursday after school, I would tell my mom, “Tonight’s our favourite stand-up comedy show!” On Tuesdays, Rai aired one of its most famous series, which happened to be one of my favourites at the time. In the newspaper my dad bought every week, the last few pages were dedicated to the TV schedule. And every evening after dinner, my family and I would gather to scan through those endless lists of programs, day by day, deciding what we would watch that night on TV.
Some days were reserved for special shows that, almost like a ritual, brought us together on the couch with our eyes glued to the screen. If you missed an episode for any reason, there was no online platform to catch up. Your only hope was the rerun channels that aired episodes at odd hours, like mid-morning or late at night—when all you really wanted to do was sleep. However, we would make an effort to watch them just to stay on top of things and discuss the latest episodes with friends the next day.
Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible to watch our favourite series on TV due to the dominance of streaming platforms. That sense of anticipation—we honestly kind of miss it. Some platforms have started releasing episodes in volumes instead of entire seasons, trying to reignite the excitement we experienced as we awaited the next episode after finishing the last one. If we want to slow down the pace of our lives, even when it comes to entertainment like television, why not rekindle the joy of waiting? Stretching out the viewing experience over a longer period can be rewarding. Give it a try—you may just rediscover a lost pleasure.
What’s the Weather Today? Look at the Sky
“Let the sky be your guide,” my grandparents always said. They didn’t rely on apps or forecasts; they could sense whether it was going to rain just by the smell of the air or the way the clouds moved. Back then, checking the weather was as simple as stepping outside and observing the world around you. I remember watching my dad as a kid, squinting up at the sky to decide whether we needed an umbrella that day or if it was safe to leave the windows open.
Now, most of us can’t imagine starting the day without checking the weather on our phones. While it’s convenient, this reliance on technology can make us feel a little disconnected from the natural world. When was the last time you looked at the clouds moving and transforming into animal-like shapes? Perhaps we have traded our intuition for information and sometimes rediscovering the smell of rain could be a valuable exercise in reconnecting with nature. Sure, you might still get caught in the rain once in a while, but that can also be part of the fun in a certain way.
