Plus ça change… In this coldly pixelated age, old-fashioned writing implements make a small but meaningful comeback I used to be sympathetic but am getting qu

Plus ça change… In this coldly pixelated age, old-fashioned writing implements make a small but meaningful comeback I used to be sympathetic but am getting quite tired of this trope. Without having researched it, could it be that this started a few years after the introduction of the iPhone? [1] H. Wallop. The return of the filofax. The Telegraph, Feb 25 2010. [2] P. Paul. A paper calendar? it’s 2011. New York Times, Jul 29 2011. [3] L. Kellaway. Digital diaries are no match for our paper past. Financial Times, Aug 31 2014. [4] A. Chemin. Handwriting vs typing: Is the pen still mightier than the keyboard? The Guardian, Dec 16 2014. [5] C. Martin. Moleskine notebooks adapt to the digital world. New York Times, Apr 18 2015. [6] The Economist. Schumpeter: On the cards. Mar 14 2015. [7] N. Sovich. The handwritten to-do list makes a comeback. Wall Street Journal, Sep 08 2016. [8] A. Birrane. Why paper is the real ’killer app’. BBC News, Jan 23 2017. [9] K. Wong. The case for using a paper planner. New York Times, Jan 4 2018. [10] ∞ I guess one factor is that the industry is fighting a rearguard battle and paying PR agencies to place this sort of article in popular media[+]. Admittedly, they got me: Before the introduction of the Pencil, I did indeed fall for it and buy a few high-priced "good" pens by the likes of Montblanc and Faber-Castell plus overpriced stationery. But I'll be damned if it wasn't all this fucking nostalgia that got us into the current mess, even though there are so many good things happening. And it is nostalgia that is holding us back or slowing our speed forward, to a better world than the old, retrograde shit. So yea, I tossed the pens, effectively. No use for paper anymore. Attachment to old shit, for oldness's sake, has become toxic in my mind in the last few years. ___________________________ [+] Something similar seems to be happening too in watches, after the popularization of smartwatches after 2015. I see a LOT, really a lot, of ads for watches in magazines and newspapers (which I consume mostly in PDF version of the print magazine, so no microtargeting going on there).