Have We Developed an Addiction to Nostalgia?
The possibilities of the future are so overwhelming that we’ve become addicted to reminiscing on “the good old days”
Technology has made it more apparent each day that the possibilities of the future are limitless— We’ve made so many remarkable strides in technology in just the past few decades that the rate at which we’re accelerating is almost terrifying.
Though, it’s not to say that mankind is necessarily ungrateful or displeased with these advancements. The progress that we’ve made has in fact saved lives, such as making tremendous headway towards ongoing research in the battle to cure diseases. They’ve also helped with things as simple as making our jobs easier to manage on a daily basis. For these things, we’ll of course be eternally grateful.
However, in other areas, things are optimizing at almost too quick of a rate for our comfort. And with these continuing optimizations, it is simultaneously creating a deeper feeling of nostalgia amongst people, leaving us daydreaming about the past and the way things were before all of these rapid-fire changes.
But, it’s not only the pre-tech realm that we daydream about.
The optimizations in technology have created a nostalgia effect in other areas of life such as education, music, art, and even writing as well (especially when it comes to publishing online).
Education has been tremendously affected by technology in terms of the resources that schools can now utilize in the classroom — These new tools for education that have made a significant impact on the way students learn.
Learning has changed in relation to new styles of teaching methods and how students are able to digest information. Reading has shifted from textbooks to e-books, classroom games to online games, and there are shortcuts to finding the answers to everything now. Keeping kids engaged is now reliant on the technology that is being used to teach them.
Music has transformed with the development of new genres that were created as a hybrid of technology mixed with musicianship. The sound of music and the lyrics themselves have changed. Music and sound can be synthesized with electronic equipment which can now replace instruments and human voices.
Art does not come solely in the form of paint and canvas — Technology has also made its way into the creation and presentation of visual art as well. It is incorporated into art, capturing the symbolism of the changes throughout history.
Writing isn’t necessarily pen to paper anymore either. Writing has now translated to typing on a keyboard. It’s transitioned to using phone applications for proofreading, spellcheck, and editing. It’s clicking the submit button to publish.
The realm of writing has changed as whole with the ease of publishing online and the accessibility of choosing multiple platforms to the point where there is an over-saturation of content. Great Writers who have not yet been discovered can easily get squashed by mediocre Writers who just know how to strategically get people to read their work.
We’re experiencing too much change too often that it makes us long for the days when we could really cherish something before it became old news by the next day.
There’s a certain sentiment to things from the past that have remained untarnished by the optimizations of technology. However, this longing for the past has caught the eye of big business. It’s becoming a marketing and advertising strategy play to leverage the past and keep us longing for more from before — And we’re buying into it.
We’re buying into bringing back past fashion trends, styles of music, and even certain art forms to the point where we’ve become addicted to the feeling of nostalgia. And maybe it’s a good thing or it could be a bad thing. But, either way, we’re making a statement in showing that things from the past are not to be forgotten.
As much as we’re invested in the future and the technology of the future, there are certain aspects in the ways of life that we may never get back and that’s a scary thing for us to realize.
We realize that there will eventually come a time when we truly can’t remember what is was like before technology took over.
