Disconnection and simplicity: technology rediscovers the value of limits

Source Domain: en.ilsole24ore.com

E-ink is not as fluid as an oled, it does not invite compulsive scrolling, it does not turn every gesture into instant entertainment. It is a technology that, precisely because it is less seductive, can become more suitable for reading, annotating, consulting documents, writing notes. Again, the inner world saved from the performative chaos of continuous connection that is always distracting.

The same applies to Paperslate Pro, an e-ink digital notebook geared towards writing and annotation, with frontlight, waterproofing and more memory than the simpler models. In this case, the value is not ‘doing everything’, but creating a working space that is poorer in stimuli. A designed poverty that becomes cognitive luxury.

At first glance, the Garmin inReach Messenger Plus seems to belong to another category: outdoors, safety, emergencies. It is an sos satellite communicator that connects to your smartphone and allows you to send messages, photos, voice notes or distress calls even in the absence of a cellular network.

And yet it is part of the same phenomenon

It does not promise a permanent connection to the digital world, but a minimal and functional reachability. It is the difference between being online and being found when we really want to be. In the first case, one remains immersed in the noise; in the second, one keeps a safety line.

The most explicitly analogue case is the Kodak Ektar H35, a 35 mm film half-frame camera. Kodak presents it as a camera capable of getting about twice as many shots from a roll of film: with 36 exposures you can get about 72 half-frame images. Smartphones, with AI-enhanced cameras, win on quality. But film plays in a different league. It introduces cost, waiting, error, limitation. Every shot has a weight. Not everything is photographed, not everything is immediately reviewed, not everything is shared.

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