What Cyberdecks, Analog Habits, and Convivial Technology Have in Common
There is a quiet but growing movement happening at the intersection of maker culture, digital minimalism, and philosophy. People are building strange, hand-assembled computers called cyberdecks. Others are ditching smartphones for paper notebooks and mechanical typewriters. A smaller but passionate community is revisiting the ideas of philosopher Ivan Illich, particularly his concept of "convivial technology." On the surface, these trends seem unrelated. Look closer, and they share a common thread: a desire to use tools that serve human beings rather than the other way around.
This article unpacks each of these ideas, explains why they are resonating with a wide range of people in 2024 and beyond, and explores what they collectively suggest about the future of how we relate to our devices.
What Is a Cyberdeck?
The term "cyberdeck" originates from William Gibson's 1984 science fiction novel Neuromancer, where it described a portable hacking device used to jack into cyberspace. In the modern maker community, a cyberdeck is a custom-built, portable computer — typically assembled around a Raspberry Pi or similar single-board computer — housed in a hand-fabricated enclosure. These builds often feature mechanical keyboards, small displays, battery packs, and an aesthetic that blends retrofuturism with practical engineering.
Cyberdecks are not mass-produced. There is no cyberdeck you can buy off a shelf at a big-box electronics store. Each one is designed, assembled, and iterated upon by its creator. Subreddits like r/cyberDeck have attracted hundreds of thousands of followers who share builds, offer feedback, and inspire each other with increasingly ambitious designs. Some look like chunky 1980s portable terminals. Others resemble prop devices from science fiction films. All of them are deeply, unmistakably personal.
The appeal goes beyond aesthetics. When you build your own computing device, you understand it. You know what is inside it, why it was designed that way, and how to fix it when something breaks. That knowledge represents a fundamentally different relationship with technology than the one most people have with a sealed, warranty-voiding-if-opened consumer laptop.
The Appeal of Going Analog
Meanwhile, a parallel movement is pulling people in the opposite direction — away from screens entirely. "Going analog" has become a loose umbrella term for practices like:
- Writing longhand in paper notebooks instead of digital note-taking apps
- Using a mechanical typewriter for drafting creative work
- Planning schedules with physical planners and bullet journals
- Reading physical books rather than e-readers
- Listening to vinyl records instead of streaming services
Proponents of analog tools often describe a qualitatively different experience of time and attention. A paper notebook does not send you push notifications. A typewriter does not track your keystrokes or encourage you to share your draft on social media. These tools demand presence in a way that their digital counterparts rarely do.
There is also something to be said about ownership and longevity. A notebook written in 1985 is still perfectly readable today. The same cannot be said for data stored in discontinued proprietary formats or files locked behind subscription software that no longer exists. Analog tools age on human timescales, not corporate product cycles.
Ivan Illich and the Idea of Convivial Technology
Underlying both the cyberdeck movement and the analog revival is a philosophical question that the Austrian thinker Ivan Illich posed more than fifty years ago: when does a tool stop serving its user and start controlling them?
In his 1973 book Tools for Conviviality, Illich argued that tools — broadly defined to include institutions, systems, and technologies — exist on a spectrum. At one end are convivial tools: those that enhance human autonomy, creativity, and direct participation. At the other end are counterproductive tools: those that create dependency, require expert intermediaries, and ultimately diminish the very capacities they were meant to support.
Illich used the bicycle as a classic example of a convivial tool. It amplifies human effort without requiring specialized knowledge to operate or maintain. The car, by contrast, demands roads, fuel infrastructure, insurance, licensing, and repair expertise beyond most users. The more cars a society has, Illich observed, the more time people spend working to afford cars, sitting in traffic, and navigating systems designed around car dependency.
Applied to modern technology, the framework is striking. A smartphone is, in many ways, a profoundly anti-convivial tool. It is sealed against repair, updated on schedules its manufacturer controls, optimized to maximize engagement rather than user wellbeing, and dependent on cloud services that can be discontinued without notice. The smartphone serves its user, but it also constantly serves its maker.
Why These Ideas Are Connecting Now
The timing of this cultural moment is not accidental. After decades of enthusiastic adoption of digital platforms, a significant portion of the population is experiencing what researchers increasingly describe as technology fatigue — a growing sense that our devices are not neutral tools but active participants shaping our attention, behavior, and social lives in ways we never explicitly agreed to.
Cyberdecks offer one response: build your own device, on your own terms, with software you control. The analog movement offers another: step back from the screen entirely when the task does not require it. Convivial technology offers the conceptual vocabulary to explain why both impulses make sense.
Practical Takeaways for Everyday Users
You do not need to build a cyberdeck or swear off your phone to benefit from these ideas. Here are some practical ways to move toward more convivial technology use in daily life:
- Audit your tools: Ask which apps and devices genuinely serve your goals, and which ones primarily serve their makers' business models.
- Prefer open and repairable: When possible, choose software with open formats and devices that can be repaired rather than discarded.
- Introduce deliberate analog spaces: Reserve certain tasks — planning, journaling, reading — for non-digital tools and notice how your experience of those tasks changes.
- Learn how your tools work: Even a shallow understanding of how your devices function changes your relationship with them from passive consumer to informed user.
- Support right-to-repair: Legislative and consumer pressure for repairable, long-lasting devices is one of the most meaningful collective responses to counterproductive technology.
A Different Kind of Progress
Cyberdecks, analog workflows, and convivial technology are not nostalgic retreats from modernity. They are experiments in a different vision of technological progress — one measured not by processing speed or platform growth, but by how much genuine autonomy and capability tools place in the hands of the people who use them. In a landscape where most technological development moves in the opposite direction, these movements represent something worth paying attention to: the persistent human insistence on tools that fit the human hand.