Designing from the Analog: Sustainable Alternatives to the Digital Footprint

Abstract

Digital technology has advanced at a dizzying pace. While many digital objects and interfaces have undoubtedly enriched our lives, we increasingly encounter smart devices designed primarily to stimulate excessive consumption. Digital features are added to new products as a commercial strategy to boost sales, often without questioning the real impact or genuine benefit of their application. 
From this premise, this work aims to critically reflect on and interrogate the effects that digital technology has on everyday life and the environment, looking beyond the ethereal and invisible way in which digitality is often presented to society. 
This article proposes that Design, as a discipline, should not only solve aesthetic or functional problems, but also foster greater critical awareness in individuals and communities regarding their relationship with the environment. It calls for a reflective mindset that can help revalue our behaviors, as well as traditional practices and rituals, in order to reinterpret the present and design a more sustainable future.