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I saw that ELI5 post the other day about why we get nostalgic for old tech, and it got me thinking beyond just "rose-tinted glasses." I think part of it is that those gadgets were often tied to specific, simpler times in our lives. Remember the original iPod? It wasn't just a music player; it was freedom from CDs, a pocket-sized mixtape for your life at that point. It signifies a particular stage, maybe your early 20s when you were discovering new music and going on adventures. Now, our phones do everything, but that also means they're connected to everything, including the stresses of work and the constant influx of data. The old tech represents a more focused, perhaps even innocent, era.
beyond that, I wonder if the perceived obsolescence contributes. Something like an old Game Boy is a tangible piece of history now, a reminder of how far we've come. It's almost like a functional artifact, a little window into the past that you can still use. The tech we use today is so rapidly updated and often digitally distributed that it feels less concrete, less tied to a specific time and place. Does anyone else feel this way?