The more technology surrounds us, the more we long for the past. There’s a growing urge to go back to the Nokia 3210, to vinyl records, to analog cameras. A desire to eliminate digital noise and saturation in search of a time of calm and contemplation. We want to go back to being bored like limpets.
This article was originally published by RetinaTendencias Spanish magazine.
by Francesco Maria Furno
It’s a fact that — the more technology envelops us — the more we express a need for a simpler life. In these recent years of social-media bulimia and phygital living, there’s a rising craving to relive a bygone life. Even generations as young as Gen Z are immersed in nostalgia for a past they never experienced. A phenomenon I personally call the Marty McFly effect.
The character from Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985), played by a lovable Michael J. Fox, made us dream of dystopian journeys soaring through the American skies in a fantastical DeLorean tuned up by Doc. An epic that, years later, would inspire series like Rick and Morty.
Longing for a past you never lived is the closest thing we have today to time travel. Our deeply insecure and unstable society has become addicted to retro-nostalgia, wrapped in objects that bring us joy and fond memories — because the past is a trickster. We remember it better than it was, even if it wasn’t so bright or cheerful. It’s a glitch in the human memory system: we assign positive traits to times we didn’t even live through or know little about. “Ah, democracy in ancient Greece — now that was real.” “The ’80s were pure magic with their colors and zest for frivolity.” Meanwhile, people were dying of AIDS and fading away slowly.
Still, our present is packed with symbols of the past, with elements that push us to wish we had lived in another era. Visual styles like Afrofuturism, which rose to popularity a few years ago with films like Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018), or the current Frutiger Aero trend, with its tropical colors and sinuous forms reminiscent of the iMac G3 launched in 1998. We feel the need to escape, and our minds compel us to build parallel worlds — multiverses with alternate versions of reality. The closer we are to phygital life, the more we crave the “calm” of the 1990s.
It’s a tribute to old objects that work like Linus’s blanket from Peanuts. Even secondhand markets are booming again thanks to the idea of upcycling — what we used to just call secondhand. A trendier term today, but the same philosophy as decades ago, when worn-out clothes and objects conveyed personality through their use and imperfections.
Now we’re the worn-out ones. Crushed by uncertainty, anxiety, climate crises, labor crises, societal crises — all of which push us toward a bleak, survival-mode future and fuel emotional consumption as a balm for our constant panic.
Yesterday hides an existential trap: because it already happened, it seems easier to live, and its nostalgia feels like a more pleasant solution than facing the vibrand and chaotic complexity of the now.
It sounds like a paradox, as Dr. Emmet L. Brown would say in Back to the Future, but the more technology we have, the more we miss a past where we didn’t have everything at our fingertips. A kind of pilgrimage, believing in the goodness of a worry-free life.
Just like Marty McFly returning to 1955 and discovering a seemingly simple past, with nothing to worry about beyond teenage problems, we yearn for basic phones like the Nokia 3210 — phones that only made calls, sent texts, and let you play Snake. Why? Because as time goes on, we value that simplicity more than the complexity of our frenetic, hyperactive contemporary world.
Yesterday hides an existential trap: because it already happened, it seems easier to live, and its nostalgia feels like a more pleasant solution than facing the vibrand and chaotic complexity of the now. Our future — especially in Mediterranean countries — feels dark, negative, full of uncertainty and potential disasters. AI will conquer us, annihilating life as we know it. Climate change will wipe us out. The economic crisis will turn us into serfs under neoliberal feudalism.
Technology and its constant need to evolve push us to feel like we need to escape chaos — and from the obligation to create yet another profile on every new social platform. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok… an endless lineup of shop windows where we have to be, posting and shouting. Meanwhile, many people are starting to say a loud “ENOUGH ALREADY!” — tired of the frenzy, the exposure, the emptiness of the moment. In a frenetic environment that consumes all our attention, there’s a growing need to simplify — to avoid dependency and the creeping feeling of attention deficit. And if interfaces are designed to trap and manipulate us, it’s only logical we begin longing for old-school gadgets that only let you call and do little else.
Were we truly happier back in the ’90s with that Motorola StarTac brick, or in the 2000s with the Nokia 3210 or the Alcatel OneTouch Easy? I don’t think so. We just romanticize what was equally complex, yet feels simpler because it’s over. We remember the prettiest parts of that life, without stopping to think about how hard it was to reach someone or arrange to meet in person. Or how finding information was a divine ordeal, waiting for the 56k modem to finally connect. That rickety sound meant nothing, but there we were — wasting time in front of a low-res screen. Romantic? Maybe. But honestly, a huge pain that stole time we’ll never get back.
We just romanticize what was equally complex, yet feels simpler because it’s over.
Yes, we’re learning to manage the complexity around us, and we suffer constant frustration from the feeling of not having enough time. But every generation learns from its context, and reading history through the lens of nostalgia is the worst way to multiply that frustration. Of course, progress means losing some slow-living habits — like having time to be bored — but we can think long-term and see how much we’ve evolved thanks to technological advances. Fewer students feel defeated today because AI helps explain hard-to-grasp concepts. During the pandemic, hypercommunication brought together experts from around the globe to find solutions. Renewable energy, once just a pipe dream at the end of the 20th century, is now a real path toward energy independence.
And yes, retreating into the past is a valid coping mechanism for today’s complexity — but it’s not the answer for building a better present. Escaping isn’t always how you solve a dilemma.
As Biff Tannen would say: “What’s the matter, McFly? Chicken?”