I admit it. I’m totally digital. Wired to the hilt. Can’t live without it.
Well, almost not. I force myself to be totally digital because it’s my job to know and experience what it is like to be totally digital. It makes me more effective in designing products and services for the next digital generation. I suppose I could live being NOT so digital, but I want to be better at my work so I be more digital than not.
In being so digital, it’s strange, funny, and sometimes frustrating when I encounter what I call “The Anti-Digital.” These are people and places which abhor having digital stuff around for one reason or another.
Take Cafe Dante in the West Village of Manhattan. Here is the sign right at the door when you enter:

Cafe Dante is a quaint cafe that serves old school espressos and eats and if it’s hot, you can always get a refreshing dish of gelato there. I like hanging out there because it isn’t as contrived as Starbucks, and it’s quiet so that you can enjoy a conversation with whomever you’re with.
But NO LAPTOPS ALLOWED. They don’t even like you talking on the cellphone with somebody. To preserve their atmosphere of being an old school, they don’t want people hanging around all day typing on laptops, even if it could mean that they get more business from the constant flow of caffeine to people typing on laptops. They just want you to have a great old fashioned conversation and enjoy a cup of coffee with your buddy or date.
Then there are “anti-digital” people. These are people that are barely can manage having a cellphone, and just don’t find value in being connected. They have email addresses but rarely think about looking on their laptops to check for email. They never buy gadgets and almost always sit in the follower part of an adoption curve, after a technology becomes so commonplace that they can’t avoid it.
One person I know at least checks email somewhat regularly, but takes forever to reply. I know this, so I rarely send emails but call instead. This person has also left their cellphone at their summer home for weeks and didn’t even bat an eyelash! Most of us would freak out if we lost or left our cellphone somewhere and could not live without it. This person just calmly told me that if someone wanted to find them, they would know how to do it. The cellphone is an afterthought in any case; most of us could not leave home without filling our pockets with our gadgets. But even when this person had a cellphone around, it would often be forgotten and left at home, or not turned on, or even left to completely be drained of power and not recharged.
Another person I know does have a cellphone, but practically never turns on their laptop. In this case, forget even sending emails to their email address; it won’t get read. But at least the cellphone is always on their person. So I must either text or email to the cellphone in order to get in contact. Otherwise, forget about websites; an iPod is barely manageable (it’s probably the worst looking, scratched up, dented iPod I’ve ever seen), and the most advanced gadget in their home is a Tivo without which shows would be missed.
To both people, there is no Facebook, no Youtube. Digital cameras get used, cellphones maybe, laptops aren’t a necessity.
When places are “anti-digital”, I’m sometimes OK with it. I seek them out to either have a decent conversation or just to get some quiet and think to myself, or perhaps read a book. Other times I can’t go there because I do need WIFI and I want to get some work done and need to be online. “Anti-digital” places don’t fit in that.
As for “anti-digital” people, this is where it is most frustrating. I’ve either developed more efficient ways of communicating or get used to communicating to the majority of people I connect with through technology. I always have to shift my normal way of communicating to another way just to get hold of these people, which is often back to some old way like picking up the phone, and that’s annoying to make that shift when you’re trying to get a lot done fast.
Is my life better being maxed out digitally or is it better being “anti-digital”? I think it’s a personal choice and a challenge. Personal choice in being maxed out digitally because I am an early adopter, and it’s important for my work, and because I have a natural curiosity about technology. A challenge in that I am a big believer in simplifing my life and while you could simplify by dropping all this digital craziness, I am a big believer that we’re going to have to live with technology and we must challenge ourselves to simplify in the face of more technology rather than less.