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I believe a hobby should have a degree of a challenge to it or surely you lose interest. I only use manual film cameras because they give that challenge. Where is the challenge to firing off hundreds of shots on a do it all for you digital device which frankly requires no skill.
Photographing digitally or with film isn't harder or easier than the other... it is different. It is just as much of a challenge to tell the subject's story now as it was then. The only thing that has changed is the process.
In some ways film was easier, in some ways harder. Film cameras had fewer controls so less to worry about, but if you got something wrong, you wouldn't know until the film was develped so often couldn't do a re-shoot as you can with digital with its instant playback.
Instruction manuals for film cameras were small booklets, digital ones, where there is a printed one at all, are far bigger, reflecting the complex nature of digital cameras. On the other hand, if you put a digital one on auto you can hand it to your non-photographer sister and tell her which button to press and that is it. (It does get annoying when she produces fantastic pictures with it, better than mine)
I found darkroom work a bit a drag, photo processing about the same. You can do more jiggery pokery with photo software. Or you can st the printer to run off a set of enprints It's horses for courses.
A bit like saying 'did you prefer a leisurely drive through the countryside down to the beach in 1955 in your Rover 90?' or 'do you prefer taking the children to school in the suburbs every day in your Kia nowadays?.
Unless you have or have had a properly equipped darkroom it is impossible to answer the digital v film photography question accurately as stated above!
Personally I think projecting the whole image onto a sheet of paper with an enlarger beats laying it down in stripes, with ink squirts, every time and look forward to the day that a proper, inexpensive, controllable, system of digital printing for home users is 'developed'.
For me film photography, including darkroom work is much easier than digital. (That was the question, not was it better or more efficient or has it more buttons to press!)
Digital has made a simple hobby very complicated.
In the days I used film it was black and white only. I found darkroom work very easy and enjoyable. I found adjustments in tank and printing very simple to carry out, and usually very successful, after the early period of failures until the technique was mastered. Not a lot different to the digital processes of today, a bit of trial and error at first. The only advantage is it is probably a little quicker, no smell and no mess in my mother’s kitchen, which doubled up as my darkroom. But great fun.
In the days of film I took the occasional good photograph.
Now, using digital, I take the occasional good photograph.
I like to think the occasions are getting a little more often.
Bulk film buying meant I could shoot ten rolls in a day at an air show.
That entailed two runs of my processing drum.
Wait for them to dry.
Ten contact sheets.
Wait for them to dry.
An find I had ten usable images.
Today, I can rattle off a thousand shots at a blistering pace an still get ten images, but at a fraction of the time!
Surely the actual art of photography is equally exacting irrespective of the medium used to record the picture - nothing has really changed since the days of film as far as taking the picture is concerned. the benefit of modern digital photography is that the results are instant and you don't depend on someone else to produce the result for you like you used to have to do.
Film was expensive.
Bracketing was essential when shooting 35mm transparency.
There was no on camera preview.
Motor drives were an expensive add-on/luxury for many amateurs.
There was no internet / social media so access to inspiration / expertise was far more restricted.
There was no photoshop for editing - after shot skills then were dark room skills.
Dark rooms were harder to manage than a PC or Mac..
Cant think of any more ...