A Digital Analogy
written by: Steve Dooré
@stevedoore84
Harry
Harry was an analogue person. It wasn’t that he wasn’t capable of using digital technology. He was capable all right. Many of his peers, and people considerably older than him, were fully immersed in the digital world. He had tried it, understood it, and rejected it. It was a choice.
He didn’t like his grandchildren very much. When they were young, they’d been adorable in the way of toddlers. He’d expected, as his own children had, that they would continue to be interested in the world, how things worked, as they grew. He’d imagined walks in the park, discovering nature. He’d imagined fetching encyclopedias down from dusty bookcases to explain to them how a caterpillar became a butterfly, the life cycle of a tree, photosynthesis.
He had been a naturalist (not a naturist, as his son Rob had so often teased him) until ill health had forced his retirement. A lifetime of working outdoors had eventually caught up with him, and he’d stopped working at 61 as part of an ongoing struggle with skin cancer. When he thought of the alternatives – days following days stuck inside, all that paperwork, all those machines, he had no doubt that a life cut short to spend outside was a life well chosen.
This new generation didn’t know how to walk down the street with their eyes facing forward. Harry hated the rudeness, the ignorance, and the sheer arrogance of a whole generation of people who felt no need to engage with the people and the world around them. People who would rather record something and watch it later than experience it firsthand.
Harry was not a stuffy old man. In his late sixties now, he saw this anti-social, intelligence-limiting, pseudo-reality behaviour everywhere. A regular at his local football club, he was incensed by the man in front of him – barely into his twenties – who watched the whole match through the camera on his phone, recording it, minute by minute, presumably so he could be the first to post it on social media. When, Harry wondered, did being seen to be at an event and provide proof of it become more important than being there? Why seek the communal recognition, the camaraderie, of likes and comments on social media, when nothing beats the unbridled joy of celebrating a last-minute winner with thousands of strangers, people you don’t know, will never know, but are 100% feeling the same as you in that moment? Harry thought of this as genuine joy, which would not be enhanced by him claiming some kind of ownership over it. “Look at me” the man in front seemed to be saying, “look what I did, I recorded the goal?” How typical of his generation to make a last-minute winner scored by a soon-to-be out-of-contract striker, who had just come back from a long-term injury, all about him, the goal scorer relegated to some kind of bizarre footnote in his own story?
It was the same story at concerts, and on cultural visits. He’d noticed that more people in museums now take photos of themselves with an object than of the object itself. Worse still, very few of them seemed interested in finding out exactly what they were having their photo taken with. Being there, and being seen to be there, once again is more important than being present.
Harry felt he was old school. He’d rather have a life lived than a life documented, curated for the outside world to enjoy. He wanted to enjoy his own life and wanted others to enjoy theirs. Generation narcissism was a phenomenon he wanted no part of.
So, His grandchildren. There were five of them in total. Rob’s three and Amy’s twins. Four boys and a girl. All of them lived with their faces glued to tiny screens permanently attached to their hands, their necks slumped over, their thumbs a whirring mass of activity, spewing thousands of digital words a day into the ether while simultaneously unable to string a coherent verbal sentence together. Values of respect and rudeness had, as far as he could tell, come full circle. There was a time when it would be agreed to be rude to ignore the people around and in front of you to look at a device in your hand. Now, these half-educated oiks, a product of his own offspring, seemed to find it rude if their grandad interrupted their endless mindless scrolling.
And so, as the world had become increasingly digital, Harry had increasingly pushed it away. He stopped using a computer. He didn’t have a mobile phone. He kept his television but only watched the BBC, and only the main channels, none of those pointless digital channels, no iPlayer. He never ever pressed the red button. If he had to book something online, he didn’t do it. Far from finding this restricting, he found it liberating. Free from the tyranny of endless choice, he made his mind up quickly and got on with his life. He didn’t want to showcase his experiences – he just wanted to experience them.
He was awoken from his daydreaming by the doorbell. He rose slowly from the chair – the only way he could now rise – and peered through the curtains. It was Jack, coming around for his weekly visit. Harry knew it was on a three-line whip from Rob, and frankly, he could have done without the interruption. But, he knew no good would come from not playing happy families, so he walked to the door and let Jack in. Rob had previously suggested giving Jack a key, but Harry had no inclination to relinquish his privacy in such a way.
“Hello young man, come on in and I’ll get you a drink.”
“Hi Grandad, you OK?”
“Yes, not too bad son, not too bad. School OK?”
“Fine Grandad. You know, if you got one of those smart doorbells you’d be able to see who was at the door without getting out of your chair.”
“I’m fine getting out of my chair, thanks very much. I like getting out of my chair.”
Harry hated this way of thinking. People had a technological answer to everything. If you want to see who is outside your house, install a device on your phone. Does it not occur to these people that it’s more pleasurable, more natural, more real even, just to look out of the window? Weather was another one – the whole family seemed obsessed with telling him what the weather was like according to their phone. “It’s easy” they’d say, “you just look at the app, click here, and it’ll tell you the weather for the day.” Harry despaired – if he wanted to know what the weather was doing, he would go outside. These new devices, these apps, were solutions to problems that just didn’t seem to exist in his world.
Jack
Jack looked at his Grandad with something between wonder and disgust. He loved him, he knew that. He was his Grandad. But they were from different planets. He wasn’t terrifically old – a family tradition of having children relatively young ensured that he’d had a good set of great-grandparents when he was born, and now in his teens, he still had a full set of grandparents. They all seemed to have come from a different planet, but Grandad – Dad’s Dad – was particularly alien. He seemed to hate everything young people did. Jack knew that this wasn’t necessarily personal – people had always struggled to understand the ways of the generations coming up behind them. With Grandad though, it felt personal. Jack often felt bullied by his grandad’s constant criticism. “Get off your phone” was a constant refrain, which Jack felt was unfair. He didn’t think he was on his phone any more than anyone else, particularly Dad, who was the worst by a mile. Yes, he used it to be in touch with his mates (and Rhi, but nobody knew about her yet) but then, didn’t everyone? He knew that Grandad’s generation hadn’t done so, but he also knew that this was down to a lack of opportunity, not some moral code. They’d sent letters, postcards, telegrams, or some such stuff? They had kept in touch, just the systems were slower and more expensive, so communication became more impersonal, more “need to know” than now. Jack was constantly in touch with people he felt he trusted, people who supported him, and he knew he did the same for them too. Surely that was a good thing?
Grandad wasn’t old – but he missed out on so much. He had no idea of things going on that he could be a part of. There was a whole village community on Facebook for older people in his community. Jack had kept an eye on it and had tried to show his grandad a number of times. There were people of Grandad’s age, people older and less fit, meeting up, going walking, going for a beer, even playing a bit of tennis. All within one minute of home, all findable with just a couple of taps. “Not interested” was Grandad’s standard response. Sometimes, this would be followed up by some additional insight like “that stuff isn’t real” or “I can organise my own life, thank you.” But that was the point – he couldn’t, not anymore. The old way of doing things only continues to work if you all do it. Grandad’s peers no longer put messages about tennis partners on the community notice board in the park. The Facebook group was the community noticeboard. Far from “living life” as Grandad often said, Jack could see he was “opting out” of life by not embracing technology. If only he could get Grandad to see it. Maybe, just maybe, he could.
Harry
They thought they were so clever. They always knew the answer – or rather their phones did. Another irritation for Harry was that these kids didn’t need to think for themselves. All the answers were there for them. When he was growing up, and when he was raising his kids, “I don’t know” was often the end of a particular line of inquiry. Unless you had an encyclopedia or a particular book, any trivia game could end with a good debate, where people either settled or compromised, or agreed to disagree. The knowing wasn’t the point. The fantastic debate was. Now though, they had the answers before anyone had even tried to guess. They were right, but it spoiled the fun. More concerningly, they would be lost without the phones. They wouldn’t know what to wear, or where they were, and even sadder, he was sure they would never have an independent thought or opinion.
As a neat little side-line, Harry had been a music writer. Just part-time and freelance for a number of local magazines. It was a bit of pocket money when he’d needed it, but really it was his indulgence in his two loves. To review an album, he would put on his headphones, stick in the cassette, and spend time either in the garden or walking in the countryside, making notes in his trusted notebook as he went. By the time he spoke to anyone else about a new album, he had already written his own article about it. He knew what he thought of it, and he knew those thoughts were his own. Real reactions. Real analysis. Real emotions. This lot read all the reviews, counted the likes, noted the shares, before even clicking the link to stream the next 30 seconds. They knew what they were getting before putting it on, and they knew what they were supposed to think – exactly the same as their peers. Where was the fun, the joy in that?
Jack
“If you would just have a look you might like this,” he said as his grandad came in holding two steaming mugs. His Grandad snorted. “Every time you come round ‘ere you want to show me something on your phone, no doubt some photo of you and your mates’ heads in the way of a historic monument you know nothing about. Why would I want to see that?”
“Aren’t you pleased that I went to the pyramids? You’re always whingeing that my generation doesn’t go out and live, have adventures – I’ve just spent three weeks in Egypt and you’re still saying it.”
“It’s the manner you do it in. You’ve been to the pyramids to show you’ve been, to put photos of yourself in front of them on FaceTime or Yourface or Twatter, or whatever it is this week. You have no interest in learning anything about them. It’s a tick-box exercise for you, like everything. Nothing has any substance anymore.”
Jack was surprised by how much that one stung. He was usually able to shrug off his grandad’s digs as the ramblings of an old man, but this one seemed to stick, though he wasn’t sure why.
“Grandad, I could tell you all about the pyramids, the history, how they were built, how many there are, without moving from this chair. I went to see them not to learn about them but to see them for myself.”
“Just because you can look it up on the internet doesn’t mean you know it.”
“How is that different from learning from a book or a tour guide or a tourist sign? It’s the same information, about the same thing. I can know as much as you do in about two minutes – and I’ve seen them as well, which you have not. Why does that mean you are better at appreciating them than me?”
Harry
Harry made immediately to dismiss his Grandson’s inane and annoying question, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate – they never really formed, because he didn’t have an answer he was happy with. He had always thought that being somewhere, and learning about it while you were there, reading, talking about it, was in some way more authentic, a more “real” experience than looking it up and then visiting and taking pictures. But was it? What was the difference? He realised at that moment that his grandson not only knew more than him, but had seen more than him, and for a second he got as close to hating a loved one as he was capable of.
Jack
How did people know what was happening before the internet? If Jack wanted to know what gigs were on in a city fifty miles away from him in three months time, he could find out. The knowledge was already in his pocket, he just had to tap the right bits of the screen at the right time. How did Grandad know?
This visit started like any other. Jack tried to suggest to his grandad that a smart doorbell would help with security, so he would know what was going on outside. He wanted to fix him up with a simple smartphone and doorbell so that, if there ever was somebody or something worrying, Grandad would be able to see it and phone someone – Jack’s Dad, the police, anyone – without having to get up. Jack had noticed that his Grandad was getting slower and slower recently. He seemed to be aging quicker than everyone around him, and Jack had begun to worry – he wasn’t good at showing it but he loved his grandad. He’d been quickly cut off by his grandad’s usual “I’m fine” routine. He’d tried to argue. “You’re digitally excluding yourself, Grandad, this is how things are done now. Just try it. Try Spotify – you can listen to anything you want.” All Harry did was to mutter “If all art is free it has no value.” Jack sighed and gave up. He did this a lot with his Grandad.
As Grandad made the tea and rooted around for some custard creams – 10-year-old Jack’s favourite, and he didn’t have the heart to tell Grandad that he really wasn’t bothered anymore – Jack sat in his usual chair (the one furthest from the fire, it was always roasting in this house) Jack searched on his phone for a smart doorbell. If he could at least get Grandad to have a look, maybe he could convince him. He knew his Dad would worry less if Grandad would take some simple precautions, and he didn’t like his Dad worrying.
The door to the living room creaked open. “On your phone again? You can’t put that thing down, can you? There’s a whole world out there and you can’t even raise your head. At least put it down to drink your tea.” This was the normal routine. They would then watch some late afternoon quiz show – whatever was on the BBC at that time – and Jack would wonder why that screen was acceptable. Why was it OK to stare at a screen where the content was chosen for you, but not OK to look at one where you discover almost anything about the world? Why was it OK to read a book for that matter, a whole book, hours and hours of reading – one person’s voice, one person’s view – but not OK to spend that time online reading everything up to date about a subject?
To try and break the cycle and relieve the boredom, Jack asked his grandad to show him his music stuff again. Grandad’s eyes lit up. He had often told Jack stories of going to gigs around the country. Led Zeppelin. The Band. The Grateful Dead. The Who. Siouxsie and the Banshees. The Cure. Ian Dury. Blondie. The stories were endless. Grandad was always there, off to the side, notebook in hand. He still has some cutouts of the reviews he’s written in a folder in the special cabinet along with hundreds of what Grandad called “proper photos.” Jack asked his Grandad if he could see these again. He had recently started going to gigs himself – his Instafeed was full of fantastic pictures of him in the front row – and to halt the conversation from sliding into Grandad’s usual whingeing about Jack being on his phone, Jack secretly loved looking at these – as Grandad’s go, his had been pretty cool. He found it difficult to marry up the dinosaur who refused to even look at pictures on Jack’s iPhone with this carefree young bloke with long hair and a joint never far from his lips.
He clearly did know, though. These pictures and articles tell a story of a young man travelling around, enjoying life. They told the story of somebody who knew he was in the exact right place at the exact right time. No fear of missing out. No chance that he should be somewhere else. And now – a few clippings, a few photos (hard copies, only one of each), unshared, mostly unseen. It occurred to Jack that the world had seen more photos of him in his 15 years than of his grandad in his entire life, nearly seven full decades worth. Jack couldn’t quite place the uneasy feeling this gave him, but he knew he didn’t like it.
Harry
It was nice for Harry to show Jack – his only regular visitor from his grandchildren – that he had once been young, and had more of a life than sitting in a chair, rooting around in his own archives, and complaining about the world moving on. He felt more real, more three-dimensional when Jack showed an interest. They spent a good hour with Harry telling stories, and Jack asking questions about the bands he’d seen. To be fair to Jack, he was very receptive when it came to music. Yes, he streamed it all through his phone, so would never know what an album was actually supposed to sound like – those speakers omitted three-quarters of the recorded sounds, leaving you with a tinny prototype of the song – but he did know his Led Zeps from his Pink Floyds, his Patti Smith from his Janis Joplin. It was as close as they came to a shared interest.
Harry noticed the time – 5.30ish, according to the clock on the wall, the one that had been there for thirty years, with just a battery change every six months or so, no upgrades necessary – and hoped Jack wouldn’t. He would never let on, but he was lonely. He told Jack he was going to make them another cup of tea, in the hope that Jack would then stay a bit longer. Jack was reading one of Harry’s reviews and simply murmered “thanks, Grandad.” Harry smiled. He knew the review Jack was reading and it was one of his own favourites. It was for a local music magazine called Hold the Gramophone and it was of Steely Dan’s “Aja.” Harry had said in the review that “this will hold up as a classic, marrying intelligent yet cynical lyrics with undeniable, jazz-infused pop tunes. It will win awards, and it will deserve them.” Six months later, it earned an unexpected Grammy. Harry always kept that one towards the front of the folder.
Jack
Jack didn’t really want another cup of tea, and although he was proud of the fact his Grandad had been a bit of a dude, he was starting to get bored. He’d read that Steely Dan review more times that he could count, and he’d even tried hard to listen to and enjoy the album. Unfortunately, it was awful, like the soundtrack to a dodgy 70s b-movie that might now be shown sometimes on one of those awful “classic movie” channels. He knew, though, that his Grandad was lonely. He also knew he was nowhere near as OK as he insisted. The man, who had spent nearly all his years outside, now struggled to get out to tidy the garden without getting out of breath. He checked the time on his phone and decided he’d stay another twenty minutes or so, at least until he had drunk this next cup of tea. Then he would have done his bit for another week. He glanced up at the picture accompanying the article, presumably the album art. It looked a lot like a red and white ribbon, slightly tangled, but if you looked closely there was a share resembling a face. He assumed this was cutting edge back then, but was now something any ten-year-old could do on an iPhone in 5 minutes. Did that make it less impressive? He was just trying to work out what he thought when he heard an almighty crash.
Harry
He had put the kettle on and put the mugs in the dishwasher. Of course, they could have used the same mugs, but Harry felt busier if he could fill the dishwasher quicker – it gave him something to do when the time came to put it on, and to unload. Purpose – even artificially designed purpose – was to be embraced. He’d grabbed two new mugs – his favourite Fleetwood Mac one (Peter Green era) and an extra large Jefferson Airplane one for Jack – more tea meant more time. He was heading back towards the kettle when the world started swaying. A few seconds later, the floor was accelerating towards his face, and he just had time to note the searing pain that was shooting across his head.
Jack
Jack responded straight away on hearing the crash. He knew immediately this wasn’t just Grandad dropping something, not least because when it was, this was always followed by what Grandad would later describe as “choice language.” He rushed through to the kitchen to find his grandad face down, smashed mugs all over the floor, and a trail of blood beginning to seep out from somewhere around his forehead, mixing in with the rivers of milky tea snaking around the kitchen floor. Jack did what he had to and called an ambulance.
Aftermath
He had died before he’d even hit the floor. A massive abdominal aortic aneurysm had been threatening to burst, unknown to anyone, for months, and had finally exploded, like a balloon with one too many breaths pumped into it. His entire body shut down in seconds. He was gone way before Jack even got into the kitchen, let alone the ambulance staff arriving.
It was a small funeral. His two children, five grandchildren and a smattering of cousins, nieces, and nephews, and a few neighbours. Around twenty people in total. It didn’t seem a lot for seventy years of life lived. Jack had twenty times that number of contacts through his social media profiles, and he was relatively conservative compared to some of his friends. Didn’t his Grandad deserve more of a send-off?
Jack had seen people putting things on socials before when loved ones had died. He had no idea if he should be doing this or not. He didn’t want people to think he didn’t care about his Grandad and thought people would almost be expecting him to say something. On the other hand, it felt almost insulting to his grandad, who hated social media. In the end, he posted:
Goodbye to my Grandad, who would have hated me putting this here. See you on the dark side of the moon.
Thirty minutes later, he had over 200 “likes.” For the first time, this seemed the wrong term for people to use to acknowledge his post. He didn’t want people to like the fact that his Grandad had died. He certainly didn’t like it. But when he read the comments, he was amazed by the kindness.
“Your Grandad was the coolest.”
“Sorry for you loss babes, sending hugs.”
“Call if u need nething.”
“Met him a few times, top bloke, will hav a pint for him 2nite.”
Jack read them all, liking each as he went. All the time thinking of his Grandad, how he would react to the grammar, the fact that people he would swear blind he’d never met were being kind about him, how he would swear at Jack for invading his privacy. He remembered, as if for the first time, the smile on his grandad’s face when he was whingeing. He thought mostly of the articles, the photos. That barely anyone had seen. He smiled through his tears.
The next day, Jack began scanning and uploading the files.
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