The idea that young people today have a damaging relationship with digital technology — a relationship that leaves them insufficiently grounded in the real world and psychologically and socially undeveloped — is not just an old person’s lament. Young people also express those concerns.
A 2023 survey conducted by the Harris Poll in partnership with my research team found that 80 percent of Gen Z adults — that is, those born after 1997 — were worried that their generation was too dependent on technology. Seventy-five percent were concerned about social media’s impact on young people’s mental health, and 58 percent said that new technologies were more likely to drive people apart than bring them together.
As a researcher who specializes in the psychology of nostalgia, I was struck by one finding in particular: Sixty percent of Gen Z adults said that they wished they could return to a time before everyone was “plugged in.”
That, of course, would involve returning to a time that largely predates their own lives.
Most of my research on nostalgia has focused on the sentimental engagement with cherished memories from one’s own life. But people can also feel nostalgic for a past that predates them, which is known as historical nostalgia.
Consumer trends suggest that many members of Gen Z yearn for a taste of the predigital era. The oft-noted increase in sales of vinyl records, CDs, physical books and board games is driven only in part by older adults looking to revisit their youth. Young people who grew up on digital entertainments are also a major force behind this retro resurgence.
This preliminary evidence was intriguing. But is Gen Z really in the grip of historical nostalgia — and if so, is that a good or bad thing? I wanted to find out.
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