Considering the Ups and Downs of Nostalgia
Personal Perspective: Nostalgia-bait can bias us against the present.
Posted December 10, 2025 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma
Don’t dwell on the past. Wake up and smell the roses. Both give sound advice. I start this post with these truisms because I don’t want it to seem like I’m ignoring them in much of what follows. Indeed, what’s done is done, and if we focus on the past, we often fail to acknowledge and appreciate the great things happening around us now, even if we can’t see it now (and possibly yearn for what we have now later). That said, embracing nostalgia , which is in many ways the opposite of such advice, can yield therapeutic effects.
I found it interesting that so many adults retreated to hobbies and interests from their childhood during various lockdowns in the COVID-19 era. For adults, leisure time is quite the commodity. But, during lockdown, much of what we typically do for fun as adults wasn’t really feasible. What could we do? Binged all your favourite TV shows? Exercise? Do all those DIY projects you’ve been putting off? Check, check, and check. Then what?
I started reading comic books again, catching up on the Ninja Turtles and Batman after a 25-year hiatus. I even went back to regularly watching pro-wrestling. Were these as fun and magical as when I was young? No, probably not. Then, why bother? Maybe boredom . Maybe I was curious to see what they were like now. Maybe because they remind me of a time when I felt safe, and there was more certainty in the world – useful feelings to have during COVID-19. It was a subtle way to help cope.
COVID-19 is now just a memory ; yet, many people kept up similar hobbies; retro-this and retro-that are booming. ‘Videogames were better back in the day’ and ‘Isn’t it a shame that today’s kids will never know the joy of a Saturday morning cartoon line-up?’ Yes, decline bias is real. I remember my friends and I making fun of the grumpy older generations, talking about how ‘everything was better back in their day.’ Now, I see that creeping into my own generation’s thinking. But I’m not grumpy about it. I don’t need to be because I have the opportunity to embrace my nostalgia – it seems more acceptable to do so nowadays than it might have been 30 years ago or maybe even 10, in light of lessons learned about coping from COVID.
In response to the retro-boom, the recent emergence of ‘nostalgia-bait’ has got me thinking, with ‘80s and ‘90s re-releases everywhere – films, toys, videogames, you name it. Producers know there’s a market for them. That makes sense. But COVID is over, we can go back to our ‘normal’ lives now. Why are we still so interested in the past? Consistent with the allusion above, nostalgia makes us feel good. It brings us back to a time when we can view the world through rose-tinted glasses, when the stakes were low, and life lacked the stress we have now.
But maybe there’s a dark side to it as well. For example, I left New York after high school and moved to Ireland. Despite some homesickness from time to time, everything in Ireland was new and exciting (hell, your 20s are an exciting time anyway). However, in my 30s, I started to miss where I grew up. My wife and I visited before we had kids, and I showed her all my old favourite places. It was a great walk down memory lane and provided a brilliant vacation. But it just wasn’t the same. Things change.
I realised my ‘homesickness’ wasn’t a function of geography. I wasn’t separated from where I grew up by 3,000 miles, but instead by 20 years. With that, it’s the nostalgia that puts the rose-tint on things. It’s not where we were or what we were doing, it’s how we remember feeling at the time.
A good portion of that aforementioned nostalgia-bait comes from social media – hypothetical scenarios presented that elicit an often indescribable, yet familiar, comforting vibe. However, sometimes what follows stretches the nostalgic into the sentimental – sometimes, even sadness. One recent post I saw really pulled on the heartstrings, particularly now during the Christmas season. A short clip played that beeping, monophonic rendition of ‘Silent Night’, emanating from a green box at the end of old Christmas tree lights. The accompanying text asked if we remembered it and how it ‘hits’ now, once we realise that experience (which many of us took for granted in terms of it always being there and, likewise, associated with so many things we love) is gone and not coming back (unless you happen to still have a working set of those lights). Our kids will never know that experience, that sound, and that ‘vibe’ because, simply, things change .
Sure, the same can be said about the dial-up modem tone we heard every time we signed on to the internet in the '90s, but the feels don’t hit as hard because it lacks that sentimental association with Christmas. For example, I imagine that, after thinking about that perhaps long-forgotten rendition of ‘Silent Night,' many people will be looking online to see if they can buy a working set of those lights – be they legit vintage or a reproduction. I might even look myself.
But even if you do get those lights, it will not bring you back to 1991. They won’t make your kids suddenly know what you felt, because they have no frame of reference. Those are your memories. We tend to think sadly about this because, no matter how hard we try, we can never articulate fully that feeling we have or had that drives our nostalgia; we can’t invite our loved ones into our heads to share our experiences.
However, we can create environments around us, and our loved ones, that facilitate the creation of similar memories. It’s the next generation’s turn to be young. But just because we’re older, that doesn’t mean it’s over for us. It’s not. We have an opportunity to create new memories now, provided we embrace ‘the now.’ People, including us, will one day be nostalgic for 2025. Nostalgia is great because it reminds us of how much we loved something. But don’t let it turn sad just because things change. Change creates opportunities for us to make new memories alongside our loved ones to share.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
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Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D., is a senior researcher at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland, where he also lectures.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.