Nostalgic Tech Takeover 📞📻

Gen Z is shifting priorities and questioning what kind of tech is the coolest.

The best purchases are usually the ones that lead us back to the basics. And even with new iPhone models and crazy developments in AI, sometimes all we crave is a BlackBerry. That’s right– the phone that hit the stage in the early 2000s has made a comeback, at least in the minds of Gen Z.

All across TikTok, Gen Z users have started romanticizing the BlackBerry era, even though many of us weren’t old enough to have one. Though the love of Y2K fashion and aesthetics has long been established on social media, 2000s tech had never had a prominent place among these communities. After all, there is something a little ironic about wanting a phone that doesn’t let you install TikTok, the very app you glamorize the device on. But, many TikTok videos have connected the BlackBerry phone to the tangible feeling of vinyls and Polaroid pictures. And with the love of older tech flourishing on TikTok, the underlying theme of “nostalgic tech,” which refers to the revival of older technologies bringing back feelings of simplicity and ease, has started to become more prominent. In an interview with The New York Times, 25-year-old Victoria Zannino emphasized the iconic nature of nostalgic tech, exclaiming, “Growing up watching ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians,’ seeing them driving with one hand on the wheel and a BlackBerry in the other hand was just such a slay of a moment.”

And, maybe the resurgence in demand for a BlackBerry and nostalgic tech isn’t just motivated by the Y2K style, but also overwhelm and stress from the rapidly evolving role tech plays in all of our lives. Dan Kassim, a 29-year-old writer, illustrated how “people are kind of burned out from the notifications and being always on, and BlackBerrys and early smartphones feel like a bit of a throwback to when phones were tools but not, like, the center of your life.”

Similarly, Gen Z has taken action in other ways to show that simplicity and IRL connection - not social media and screens - should be front and center in all of our lives. Recently, 24-year-old Harvard graduate student Gabriela Nguyen started Appstinence, a movement encouraging Gen Z and Gen Alpha to pull back from social media and become less attached to their phones. Nguyen grew up in Silicon Valley, the center of the Big Tech industry, and realized her addiction to her phone, so she created Appstinence, and with it, the 5D Method to rebel against the hyperconnected digital world.

The 5D Method is a gradual process to depart from the digital world, and it involves five steps: decrease, deactivate, delete, downgrade, and depart. Nguyen adds how tech should only serve the basic purposes of allowing you to text and call with family and peers, but other than that, you should be out in the sunshine, soaking in everything the real world has to offer.

Both the BlackBerry and Appstinence make one message clear: Gen Z is shifting priorities, becoming more cognizant of tech’s impact on their wellness and emphasizing how going screen free isn’t outdated or impractical, but cool and vintage.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you think bringing in a phone with a physical keyboard, or trying out the 5D method is worth a shot?