Low-Techies Strike Back

If you're still wearing that Casio calculator watch or using a micro-casette answering machine, you may be on the cutting edge of culture. In a globalized society of gadget-crazy tech-worshipers, there was bound to be a backlash. The Low-Tech movement is more than that. Born out of frustration with the expensive and never-ending cycle of upgrades, youngish urban professionals are abandoning the cult of shiny, new, smaller, faster, lighter.

The movement appears to be more than just a group of reactionary Windows Vista users and disgruntled late-adopters. Hipsters across the nation are eschewing the latest and greatest in favor of tried-and-true tools (think desktop abbacus) as advocated in Low-tech Magazine. Many aren't anti-technology (they do blog, after all), but wary of everything that is labeled "New and Improved!" Forget lust-fuelling sites like Engadget and Gizmodo, lurk The Low-Tech Times, where old(er) technologies are compared with their much-hyped replacements (rabbit ears vs. web TV, riding lawnmowers vs. push), and (predictably) the old school comes out on top.

“Just because you can have a nuclear-powered thing that can dry your clothes in five minutes doesn’t mean there isn’t value to hanging your clothes in the backyard and talking to your neighbor while doing it.”   NYT: Late Adopters Prefer The Tried and True

Forget the iPhone or even DayTimer bricks, Type-A's everywhere are Getting Things Done with homemade Hipster PDA's. Truly artistic photographers are eBaying their soul-less Nicons and picking up lomographic toys or rigging their own pinhole cameras that add unique character and style. These days, any self-respecting urban bicyclists rides a fixie, and true DIY-ers don't buy power tools anymore, they borrow hand tools from community tool libraries. 

For some, it's the appreciation of beauty and simplicity. For others, it's the willful rejection of planned obsolescence. The lo-tech/retro-tech movement champions garage-sale technology that is easier, more reliable, greener, and cheaper than what Best Buy has to offer.

The Low Tech movement matters because it values re-use (good stewardship). Its underlying anti-consumerism runs against the blatant materialism that is so prevalent today. Practicioners give themselves to hard(er), more thoughtful work, and learn to appreciate the beauty in (relative) simplicity.