Why Gen Z is embracing cassettes, Polaroids, and print
A nostalgia-fueled real-world renaissance is underway, led by young adults striving to counter the cultural pessimism and division that pervades much of online life.
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By Clay Routledge
Imagine walking into a home with cassettes and VHS tapes on the shelves, a Polaroid on the desk, and print magazines on the coffee table. You may assume the house belongs to someone who grew up in the 1980s or ‘90s and never moved on, but there’s a good chance they’re a Gen Z adult who wasn’t alive then. Far from being stuck in the past, they may be using nostalgia for an era that predates them to improve their lives and build a better future.
Modern life is increasingly mediated by computer technology. We shop, socialize, entertain ourselves, and engage in public discourse online in ways that have steadily replaced in-person equivalents. As digital natives, Zoomers are at the center of this shift and are also the ones most actively pushing back, searching for more tangible ways to spend their time.
You can see it in several recent trends driven largely by young people. Physical media — records, cassettes, books — is rebounding. Hands-on hobbies like knitting, pottery, and woodworking are increasingly popular. And gathering places like music festivals, boutique fitness studios, independent bookstores, and shopping malls are drawing more people.
It’s too soon to know how far these trends will go, especially given the decades-long decline in in-person socializing. But they suggest a meaningful turn is happening, particularly among Gen Z, who are more likely than any other generation to report ditching screens.
Nostalgia lets us step away from our current troubles and tap into the past for comfort, guidance, and inspiration.
Nostalgia for a previous era is an animating force behind these consumer and behavioral trends. In a nationally representative survey conducted by our team at the Archbridge Institute’s Human Flourishing Lab, 68% of Gen Z respondents reported feeling nostalgic for eras before their lifetime, and 73% said they are drawn to media, styles, hobbies, or traditions from earlier periods. Additionally, 78% said they believe new technologies and products should incorporate ideas and design elements from the past.
What would lead history’s most digitally immersed generation to feel nostalgic for pre-digital eras? To answer that question, it helps to understand how nostalgia works.
Nostalgia is a warm sentimentality toward the past. It typically centers on cherished personal memories, but it can also encompass a broader appreciation for ideas, traditions, and ways of life one has never directly experienced. Though often characterized as light-hearted entertainment, nostalgia is an important self-regulatory resource for navigating life’s difficulties. It lets us step away from our current troubles and tap into the past for comfort, guidance, and inspiration.
For example, our research on how nostalgia helps us fulfill our need for social connection found that when people are pessimistic about their social lives, they become nostalgic for a time of socially fulfilling experiences. Being reminded of social success can give them confidence to overcome current challenges, motivating them to pursue goals focused on building and strengthening relationships.
A large body of research documents a similar self-regulatory process across a wide range of challenges and cultures. Though nostalgia can be evoked by many stimuli, from hearing a song to seeing an old friend, we tend to feel most nostalgic when dissatisfied or distressed. Nostalgia provides comfort, but it also mobilizes us to improve our situation.
Gen Z is the generation most likely to struggle with depression and anxiety, and many see their always-online lives as part of the problem.
Nostalgia usually draws on personal memories — but what if your own past isn’t enough? As Gen Z looks for models of a more analog life, they seem to be directing nostalgia further back in time. This is historical nostalgia, and Gen Z appears to be using it to ease dissatisfactions with digital life.
One of their most pressing concerns is mental health. Gen Z is the generation most likely to struggle with depression and anxiety, and many see their always-online lives as part of the problem. In a survey our team conducted with the Harris Poll, 74% of Gen Z adults reported that they are worried about social media’s impact on mental health, 80% are worried their generation is too dependent on technology, and 58% think new technologies are more likely to drive people apart than bring them together.
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Historical nostalgia may be beneficial here. The retro-inspired activities Gen Z has embraced pay measurable psychological and social dividends. In our survey, 65% of Gen Z adults said that nostalgically exploring eras that predate their lives helps them when they are stressed about modern life, while 66% said it helps quell anxieties about the future.
Research also shows that when young people read nostalgic stories written by older adults, they feel more nostalgic themselves, enjoying psychological benefits similar to those gained from reflecting on their own cherished memories. The benefits of nostalgia can be derived not only from personal memories but also from experiences exchanged across generations and preserved in art, media, and traditions.
Gen Z is not opting out of modernity. It is opting out of the assumption that the digital world must consume the analog one.
Historical nostalgia may strike some as mere escapism, and that is part of it: Gen Z is looking to escape what they find distressing about always-online life. But nostalgia is much more than that. It increases meaning in life, goal motivation, social engagement, creativity, and optimism. Moreover, research has distinguished nostalgia from less healthy forms of past-oriented thinking, like declinism. Nostalgia-fueled retro trends aren’t just helping people disengage from what they find distressing about the digital world; they are helping them build a more fulfilling life in the real world.
Importantly, Gen Z’s historical nostalgia isn’t a rejection of progress. By many indicators, young people remain enthusiastic about and early adopters of emerging technologies. In our research, significant majorities of Gen Z adults said they are interested in learning about new technologies, motivated to use them, and value open-mindedness about advances. And studies find that nostalgia actually increases positive attitudes toward innovative technologies. Gen Z is not opting out of modernity. It is opting out of the assumption that the digital world must consume the analog one.
Gen Z is not alone in their nostalgic feelings for a past that predates them. Our research finds that millennials and Gen Xers also report high levels of historical nostalgia. But Gen Z, raised in the most digitally saturated world and bearing its heaviest costs, may be the most motivated to act on it.
A nostalgia-fueled real-world renaissance is underway, led by young adults striving to reclaim personal agency, improve psychological well-being, strengthen social bonds, and counter the cultural pessimism and division that pervades much of online life. The very generation we feared was born too late for the analog world may be the one bringing it back.
This article is part of Big Think’s newest special issue, The Opt-Out Nation.
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I believe on one level this is not so much nostalgia as a return to being more human and interactive in a system that is increasingly predatory or made numbing by algorithms.
Thanks for this article. Before, I’d bluntly thought of nostalgia as being stuck in the past. You’ve shifted my perspective with this. Also, there’s something kind of poetic about the most online generation in history showing the rest of us it’s gone too far.