Excerpt:
At the same time, Gen Z is increasingly nostalgic. They’re struggling with decreasing social infrastructures and are disillusioned with the state of their finances, a growing political divide and a job market overshadowed by artificial intelligence.
Clay Routledge, a psychologist who studies nostalgia, says people long for a time when socializing felt more organic, and they are thinking about how to bring the technology of that era into their lives.
“There’s something about mining the past, for what seems on the surface like objects, but it’s really more about a vibe or an energy from that time,” Routledge says.
Young people are increasingly embracing flip phones and landlines in place of their smartphones — traffic on the website Dumbphone Finder jumped 12-fold from 2022 to 2025, according to the site’s founder, Jose Briones.
Walkman sales are up 111% and instant film cameras 157%, according to Afterpay’s Spring/Summer 2026 Trends Report. Pinterest Predicts’ 2026 report found searches for “snail mail gifts” are up 110% on the platform. Eventbrite in June declared it “The Offline Summer.”
“Young people are saying, ‘Hey, we’re frustrated with all the negativity, all the pessimism, feeling like just addicted or too dependent on these technologies, and we’re doing something about it,'” Routledge says.
Read the full article at USA Today.
USA Today
Share:
Related Posts
