We're Not Addicted to Nostalgia. We're Just Escaping the Internet.

"Shall we both get a landline?" I hurriedly asked my friend as we settled into our allocated seats in the cinema, waiting for the trailers to start.

We’d just been revelling in the idea of putting our phones on flight mode for the next two hours, uninterrupted by buzzes, notifications, and reminders that the outside world was waiting for us to respond. "It's the only place I feel like I can do that nowadays," I reflected.

I, like almost everyone, it seems, at the moment, fall under the term "chronically online." I’m addicted to TikTok. I post Instagram Stories an annoying amount. I’m not proud of it, but every month or so I carefully curate photos to share with the world how "great" my life is, whatever that means. I’m in what feels like five million WhatsApp groups. I talk to my friends across a multitude of platforms, depending on what we’re talking about or what silly content we’ve shared in the last hour. I read Co-Star every morning to see what lies in the stars for me that day (Virgo Sun, Libra Rising, if you’re wondering), often before checking whether the actual sun is already out. I get approximately two billion emails every day trying to sell me things from brands I didn’t even know I’d given my email address to. I track how far I run and get told whether I’m on pace. I get notifications from four different apps about events, gigs, and things I just have to sign up for almost every day. I have the podcast app reminding me about everything I’m subscribed to, automatically downloading episodes that take up most of my storage space, which I inevitably have to delete a month later because I’m too busy searching through my Spotify playlists. I’ve got ASOS telling me the item I wanted (which I definitely don’t need) is back in stock. And Uber is telling me they now sell train tickets. It’s a lot. Is phone fatigue a thing? Because I’ve got it.

Maybe that’s why I’ve had such a longing to press actual clicky buttons, potentially swirling a plastic cable around my finger while chatting, then returning the receiver to its rightful plastic home with a satisfying "clunk" after the conversation was over.

It might also have something to do with my comfort TV shows being either 90s and 00s-inspired or actually from that period. I’m deep into watching One Tree Hill for the first time, and I devoured the JFK Jr./Carolyn Bessette love story. I love Seinfeld. The O.C. is the ultimate teen drama (seriously, what dramatic plot didn't they cover in that show?!), while 90210 and Gossip Girl are my late-noughties faves.

The Land of No Smartphones

I’ve often wondered why I go back in time to find comfort. It can’t just be the teen drama I love. Maybe it’s being transported to a world with no smartphones. A world where people have to pick a place and a time to meet and trust that the other person will show up. All conversation is saved until then. Maybe it’s fashion nostalgia. Maybe it’s the storylines of romance, lies, and pure drama, all ending in a moral lesson for us to learn. Maybe it’s the simple fact that people aren’t on their phones ALL THE TIME. The fact that if you liked someone romantically, you had to follow up with a phone call and suggest a date. And if they didn’t answer because they were out (and didn’t have a mobile), you had to try again later or, shock horror, leave a message on their answering machine. God, what I’d give for a man to be confident enough to leave me a voicemail.

Back in the future, here in iPhone and social media land, we’re left with inauthentic back-and-forths: ghosting, or slowly phasing someone out after hours wasted messaging and never even meeting. We don’t actually know whether the funny, slapstick video we’ve just watched is even real, or just AI. When we’ve got plans with our friends, we don’t just meet them there; we’re pinged with a million group chat messages detailing every step of each person’s journey, no, expedition, from one side of town to the other, all before reaching the meeting point. All the while, our heads are buried in our phones, with human interaction reserved for the screen or strictly for when we finally arrive. We’re plugged in from the moment we leave the house, no, from the moment we open our eyes, and it doesn’t stop until we switch on Sleep Mode and attempt to get a restful night’s sleep (unlikely).

This online life really is overwhelming. And as much as we think it’s necessary, a lot of it just… isn’t. I fear it’s making us all rather performative. Do we really need to know what everyone’s doing all day?

Digital overwhelm has distracted us from knowing who we authentically are. It’s become harder to distinguish between what we genuinely like and what we simply want to be perceived to like because it’s objectively cool. It’s harder to trust our intuition when we’re constantly bombarded with opinions we never asked for.

Sat in that cinema seat, was I reaching for something that simply wasn’t there? I started to think that no matter how many low-rise jeans we buy from overpriced vintage shops, we’re too deeply embedded in the digital era to ever get a less-online life back. I don’t remember ever signing that contract. It just happened. We seemed to want it. And now I can’t even get a landline.

But maybe there’s something meaningful in reaching for nostalgia. Could embracing our longing for nostalgia actually cure our digital burnout?

I desperately wanted to break the muscle memory of scrolling whenever I had a spare few moments. To stop using that little pink-and-purple app as a pacifier for my overthinking. It almost always resulted in the old "Thief of Joy" entering the room, leading me into a spiral of comparison, frozen to my screen and the position I’d assumed on my sofa, my self-esteem slowly dripping away.

I made a decision: I’d replace doomscrolling with intentional clicking. Dare I say, with pride, like a dad from the early 2000s, that I was going to "surf the internet"? Yes. Yes, I will. And those waves are delightful.

I wasn’t, in fact, cast aside by society, a fate I’d rather dramatically resigned myself to. I wasn’t off-grid. By reducing the time I spent scrolling, I found myself engaging again with what genuinely interested me. I had more time to read essays and think pieces online. If something caught my attention, I’d pause, open a new tab, and dive deeper. I felt like a teenage version of myself again, sitting cross-legged on my bed, searching for inspiration to help me develop my sense of self.

Slowing Down the Internet

Intentional internet use helped me limit the amount of information I was feeding into my brain, and I started to rediscover a teenage-like enthusiasm for discovering things. I was exploring music again, going down rabbit holes instead of letting Spotify hand me the cheat code. I was paying more attention to the emails telling me about events in my local area, new exhibitions I’d enjoy, and opportunities to build community in real life. Music started to feel personal again, in a genuine way. I realised I’d been duped by Spotify’s ready-made playlists designed to suit my exact mood on a Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m. Shouldn’t I know what I want to listen to at that time, rather than relying on some algorithm-led quick fix? Those playlists started to feel like ready meals: they look delicious on the packaging, yet never quite hit the spot after the microwave pings.

It’s not just me reaching for nostalgia. Cool girls carry digital cameras now, Y2K-inspired outfits are everywhere, and iPods are quietly making a comeback, with Back Market reporting that iPod sales jumped 48% from 2024. They now even have an entire advertising campaign built around the "no screen time" that iPod Shuffles can offer.

This piece by Emily White reveals a growing interest in ditching streaming and opting for the discontinued device instead. White’s research found that it’s the nostalgic element driving people back to iPods: they appreciate that they’re relatively "stupid" devices, with no algorithm, no ads, and no distractions from other apps. Some are even using them as time capsules to reconnect with their younger selves.

There’s also the idea that we can reclaim autonomy through iPods, with one respondent saying:

"Everything is for rent through subscriptions, and nothing is ours anymore. It seems like a way to fall back in love with music again, which has always been a rebellion to the everyday monotony of life."— Eddie Caamano, Atlanta

The piece comforted me. It suggested that by taking simple steps, like returning to the trusty iPod, we can regain some ownership over how we consume. By removing all the noise, we strip away the performative side of consumption and focus on what genuinely resonates with us.

While we all have to move on from that teenager, safe in their bedroom, surrounded by wonder and sheltered from cynicism, I think it’s probably worth revisiting that state of mind from time to time. Much like returning to our childlike selves for moments of unbridled fun, it’s equally important to reconnect with that slightly angsty teenage version of ourselves. To go down the rabbit hole and uncover a little more meaning. To return to those teenage instincts: searching, questioning, and slowly relearning who we are. And, perhaps most importantly, to resist succumbing to the insistent pull of the quick dopamine fix that waits for us on every wave of the internet.

While we may never fully return to a world where doomscrolling was merely a twinkle in society’s eye, a little yearning for nostalgia might just be the antidote to our oversubscribed digital lives.