The Power of Pre-Internet Nostalgia
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What is the central premise of the episode’s discussion on pre‑Internet nostalgia?
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If you have one word, it can be a noun, it can be an adjective, it can be any part of speech that you want to describe your overall relationship to technology at this moment in time.
Antagonistic.
Complicated. Fraught.
I think of it as a as an addiction. Similar to how I relate to like sugar or anything else that I sort of compulsively overindulge in. What's your word? Indentured.
I was gonna say reluctant, but maybe that's not right.
Very frequent
user. Okay, that's a lot of words, but we'll take it. I'm Julie Beck, a staff writer at The Atlantic.
And I'm Natalie Brennan, a
producer at The Atlantic. This is How to Touch Grass.
Have you heard the young people say touch grass? Switch to a dumb phone. This is the Nokia 2780. It's like a term basically, which is like get off your phones. Smartphones are evil, they're ruining society, and we need to just stop. 100% disagree. Get off the internet and go outside and touch grass. I nominate everyone for the touchgrass challenge. Go outside and touch some grass like I'm doing right now. Go, go, go.
In this season, we'll be exploring the often fraught, always changing relationship people have with technology and the ways that in this moment the terms of the relationship are being renegotiated.
Julie, the way that I would like to renegotiate my relationship to technology is that I would like to throw my phone in the East River. Natalie, you could throw your phone in the East River. Why don't you? It's not really just about my phone. I wanna throw your phone in there too, Julie. But I I can't take everyone's phone. So I think what I mean to say is that I yearn for a pre phone era.
I think we're not the only ones who have this fantasy. It's all over TikTok.
What's the biggest trend of 2026 gonna be? Analog. This past year we've seen the rise of nostalgia. Switch from iPhone cameras to digital cameras. Here's how to actually be more analog in 2026. First
I wanna s
Analog era is here. And while audiences say they want to go offline, Gen Z and millennials openly expressing their desires to break from an online world, find D- I
stopped using an iPhone three weeks ago and the effects have genuinely
been profound.
In the past few years there's been no shortage of people advocating for reducing screen time. But another force that has been inspiring people to rethink how they use their devices lately is nostalgia.
We can often feel overwhelmed in the moment and in the the challenges we face today. It's hard to see past them. Nostalgia can't help us step outside of that moment.
Clay Rutledge and his colleagues have been studying what's behind this widespread yearning for a time before smartphones and before social media. Clay's a psychologist who specializes in nostalgia, and he's also the author of Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live a More Meaningful Life. Clay, hello, welcome. Hi Julian. I see you've got an Atari poster behind you. There's some kind of video game that is too small for me to see what it is. What is it?
On the shelf I've got an old Nintendo, the original IDS. Then I've got the Robotron Arcade game, which is an arcade from the 80s and the Atari poster. So yeah, lots of video game nostalgia from different brands in decades.
Oh man, perfect.
How does Clay Routledge define nostalgia as a psychological resource?
Okay. It's a nostalgia museum at your house.
It is indeed.
Clay, just to get started, what is the point of being nostalgic about anything?
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the central premise of the episode’s discussion on pre‑Internet nostalgia?
0:02–4:14
2
How does Clay Routledge define nostalgia as a psychological resource?
4:14–10:28
3
Why do Gen Z and Millennials yearn for a time before smartphones?
10:28–15:05
4
What did the 2023 survey reveal about people’s desire to ‘go back’ to a pre‑plugged‑in era?
15:05–22:22
5
How do ‘control’ and ‘community’ emerge as the two main nostalgic drives?
22:22–29:33
6
What analog trends (dumbphones, vinyl, board games) are gaining traction and why?
29:33–37:29