David Frum's new book, "Cities," is about the contrast between digital and analog worlds. He says cities are often seen as technologically sophisticated places but they're really chaos machines that are inherently analog. The city of the future isn't Saudi Arabia or Muhammad bin Salman building a city in the desert; it's anyone who wants to live there. But when technology seeks to replace its problems with more advanced ones like sewage treatment systems he asks: What do we want?
“The future is digital,” they said. Then the pandemic came along and forced that digital future on us. We traded offices for Zooms, gyms for Pelotons, schools for YouTube videos, restaurants for takeout apps. And guess what? It sucked. Many of us longed for face-to-face interactions and real-world experiences, none more so than David Sax, whose new book, “The Future Is Analog,” urges us to stop fantasizing about technological possibilities and start focusing on what we actually need, because it turns out that what a lot of us need is decidedly low-tech.
---
• Want to hear David's Book Bite? Download The Next Big Idea app
• Have thoughts on this episode? Join us in conversation by subscribing to our newsletter on LinkedIn