Excerpt:
Psychologist Clay Routledge has specialised in the study of nostalgia since 2001 and says he’s “hesistant to make too big of a deal of any one given year”.
Political events of 2016 may have elevated existing divisions, Clay says, but these significant moments and events hold nostalgic power because they act as “markers”.
“You can always find these points in time in which people anchor themselves to for some sort of guidance,” he says.
Clay suggests two factors that could be driving the obsession with 2016: the start of a new year, and many young people feeling uncertain about the future.
“We tend to be especially nostalgic when the world feels like it’s going through some major change,” says Clay.
He points to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), and people’s worries about how it will affect employment.
“When generations are going through this kind of upheaval or this kind of challenge, they tend to look back to their youth for comfort and for inspiration, for guidance,” he says.
And 10 years ago makes sense for a lot of us, he says.
“Young millennials would be in their early 30s, and the older Gen Z would be in their late 20s, and so 10 years ago would be that kind of youthful time,” he says. “People are looking back maybe a decade and saying, ‘Okay, what was going on then?'”
Read the full article at BBC News.
BBC News
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