Technology is a nostalgia machine
We see more of our pasts than ever. And it's just getting started. How do we deal?
I first noticed technology’s strange nostalgic effect through Facebook memories.
I'd see notifications during the years after college and cringe at old photos or posts. Sometimes, I’d sit there and laugh, other times I would hit delete, wanting to erase less than ideal memories or opinions.
Now, with the rise of photo sharing and storage apps, the nostalgic effects of consumer tech have accelerated rapidly, often occurring without much or any extra effort from the user. Both iPhoto and Google Photos create cinematic, emotional highlight reels from photos taken around the same time and location. The curation effects are impressive. I regularly get value out of these features, especially as a married father of three kids, who loves to relive positive memories that I’ve had.
But there is a secondary effect that I’d like to explore: What happens when we have constant access to detailed records of our past? What happens when we are constantly presented with evidence of the passage of time?
In the recent past, photographs still provided evidence of the past. But the scope and scale of the effect was severely diminished. Looking at a single old photo from your childhood, or flipping through a baby book for your kids is a narrow, focused act. Sure, it could produce feelings of nostalgia, but the sheer quantity of captured memories was much smaller. Now, we capture unlimited quantities of photos and videos, and thanks to AI, the curation effects will only get better.
I’ve come to believe that we’re going to need rituals or mental processes of managing all this nostalgia if it’s going to be of service and not harm.
Harm? You might think. Sounds dramatic.
Yes, I’m suggesting that there must be an emotional or even psychological toll that comes with having access to so much of our past in a digitized and curated form. Will it make the aging process more challenging? I think it might.
That’s why I suggest we’ll need to learn to intentionally manage and/or appreciate all of this new (old) information. This is where reflection, curation on the user’s end, and gratitude come in.
Just as the rise of social media and other digital technologies has led to a renewed, almost urgent interest in focus, productivity, improved sleep, and returning to nature, could the deluge of nostalgia faced by aging tech natives lead to a rise in learning to process the past in a productive, positive way?
We are entering decades where we will be constantly exposed to who we once were, what we once did, how we once looked, and the relationships we once had. We can’t passively consume it all. We can delete lots of it, which is its own act of processing. But we’ll be left with lots of it to make meaning from.
This does not even begin to address deep fakes, which today are mostly seen as horrifying or amusing novelties. In the near future, the technology clearly has the potential to let users recreate communication with lost loved ones, relive past memories, or revisit old places or experiences.
We have to approach our newfound access to the past with intention, but I only have an inkling of what that might involve.
By deliberately reviewing the past, sorting through its meaning, and yes, curating the it to serve us, we can better understand how prior experiences inform present reality.
We can learn to appreciate the passage of time instead of run from it.