Gen Z is Having a Homemade Christmas. Here’s Why Nostalgia is Taking Over.

Excerpt:

Routledge says that nostalgia for childhood is often linked to dissatisfaction with our current situations, leading people to draw inspiration and comfort from tangible familiar memories and traditions.

“There’s something about the human experience that involves analog, in person, tactile, multi-sensory experiences that can’t be fully replicated with in the digital world,” Routledge says.

While some of these traditions are about personal memories, Routledge says Gen Z is also experiencing a historical nostalgia: a longing for times predating someone’s lifetime, like that magical feeling it felt like to be a kid during the holidays. You know, pre-internet.

And while nostalgia is sometimes portrayed as an unhealthy fixation on the past, Routledge says reflecting back on and appreciating experiences in our life can foster a sense of belonging and even be a source of inspiration for future traditions.

“Nostalgia could actually be a tool for progress, because it’s not about rejecting change,” Routledge says. “It’s about saying, oh, there’s something that we’ve let go of or we’ve lost track of, and we should reintroduce it.”

Read the full article at USA Today.