Playing an acoustic, real instrument, pushes one through many inescapable multi-sensory experiences. You get to listen and feel loudly every mistake; you experience muscle pain; you notice shifts in balance and slowly, you learn how your hand position and finger dexterity shape the sound you make.
Analog instruments, buttons, switches resist you — and I used to have a computer that, in its own way, did too. A 586 computer, 512MB (MB, not TB!) hard-drive, DOS and Windows 3.11. It had a physicality to it. It was heavy, way harder to move. Took a few minutes to boot. Most applications were simple, made to assist humans in getting tasks done, without distractions.
Today's computers are great and help me get many, many (and many more) things done, and maybe some of these didn't really need to be done. Everything launches and relaunches at the blink of an eye. They're portable and everywhere, making it easy to always be doing something and often making humans forget about what really matters for them (what matters in a decade).
If you’re a musician, you have encountered discussions on analog versus digital recording. Historically, the limitations of the analog medium provided the constraints that forced musicians to really get to know a piece of music (memorization, improvisation and precise execution skills!). Most well-recorded albums were done like that, in one or a few takes, by extremely focused individuals playing for hours with their instruments.
For knowledge workers, the work happens through a series of simulations (the software, the computer). There is versioning, undo and the ease of copying, pasting, duplicating without precise tactile feedback. A true loss of the physicality and a reality where nothing nudges or pushes you back.
A quiet space and the instrument of your craft offer a focused way to work on problems and tasks and mastering a craft. The lack of speed and the relaxed state of mind it affords (when you get acquainted with the space) are hard to replicate in general-purpose devices.
I've struggled through years of trying, failing (and trying some more) to increase my focus and the quality of my output with the multi-tasking strategy. Interacting with less-capable products such as e-ink tablets made me realize that it is possible to use computers as analog instruments. It is a setting. A setting that inspires the sensations of a corner of a room that is always ready to be played. An analog-space.