Seventy-seven percent of middle-age Americans (35-54 years old) say they want to return to a time before society was “plugged in,” meaning a time before there was widespread internet and cell phone usage. As told by a new Harris Poll (via Fast Company), 63% of younger folks (18-34 years old) were also keen on returning to a pre-plugged-in world, despite that being a world they largely never had a chance to occupy.
I agree with the commenters who said people miss certain things but forget about convenience of the connected world. I wanted to add that people likely misattribute their nostalgia to unconnected world because they were kids. It felt great being a kid not because we were pre-internet, but because we were kids. We had no bills to worry about. We’d always have food. And that was the only food we ever knew about so we loved it. Our worries were to just have enough time in the day to play all the cool things with friends and explore the world. We didn’t feel guilty for just playing video games the whole day or hanging out with friends the whole day. Our bodies could fall from a tree and our bruises would heal in a week. We’d find a motherfucking ant and be fascinated by it for hours! Have you tried staring at ants now? It’s mindnumbingly boring. Of course we miss the way we felt when we were kids. Technology ha nothing to do with it. Every generation misses being a kid.
Eh. I like the internet and the connections it allows us to form. I think internet access for all is a good thing.
I do miss a time when cellphones weren’t ubiquitous, though. They have their purpose but there’s a certain social expectation to always be available, and I think that is a bad thing. I miss disconnecting. I guess, in principle, I could literally just do that.
I call BS. I think this is something that people like to think that they believe, but they really don’t.
The first time they found themselves standing in the kitchen and thinking, “How long am I supposed to cook chicken?” and realizing the only way to find out is to clean up, get dressed, drive down to the bookstore and find a cooking-for-beginners book (or, if they’re lucky and know somebody who would know the answer, they could try to call them, but it would only work if that person was home and able to hear their landline and felt like gambling on answering an unknown call - unless they maybe had caller ID), they’ll be right back on board with the digital age.
Like, go watch early-seasons episodes of The X-Files and realize how many of the plot lines only work because the show started in a time that was pre-mobile phones, and then realize that kind of hilariously stupid and inconvenient situation was just, like, everyday life for everybody not so very long ago. Plan to meet a friend for lunch but they don’t show up? You can decide to wait and risk eating alone, or go home, because there’s literally no way to find out if they’re just running a little late or if they’re completely unable to come or what.
Sure, social media is a bit of a hellscape, but there is so much convenience that people take for granted that comes from cell phones and internet. I just do not believe more than a single-digit percentage of people would seriously enjoy going back for more than a few days, tops. No more than a camping trip.
“middle-age Americans (35-54 years old)”
35 is middle-aged??
I’m 36. Been feeling midlife crisis-y for at least a year. My body’s on the decline (not bad but I obviously passed my peak), I’m terrified of illness, time feels like it has truly shifted into high gear. I’ve just been trying to embrace my middle age lol
Bloody hell. I’m 34 and might be in the best shape I’ve ever been since I changed my diet and started regularly swimming. My only regret is I waited until a couple of years ago.
Swimming is such a good exercise. Nothing else hits so many muscle groups and does cardio at the same time.
I’ve stayed in relatively healthy shape, so I’m just starting to notice that everything is starting to feel…stiffer, primarily. I can’t run and jump with the same effortlessness I always could before.
34, here. I’m still a youth!! XD
Amen to that sister!
Yes?
I mean… if life expectancy is 76.4 years then “middle” is 38.2… 35 is a reasonable approximate start to the “middle” age.
…my bones hurt, now.
I like having the internet and technology. It’s the abusive use of it that I don’t like.I am also one who wishes phones were of no necessary use. Why do I need a phone number to sign up to an online service? Why must I have an email address and internet access just to see what lab results came in from the doctor’s office? What use is my email address being “real” to some online community and services? I would be okay in a world where the phone and emails were just a nice thing to have and not required. I understand that everyone is saying “just turn off the phone, watch tv, unplug the computer”… But with how just about every company in the world requires this to even function, it’s a lot easier said than done. I think the real thing folks on surveys like this are looking for is a world where the internet, phones, computers, etc are nice to have but not needed to live a life. Or maybe I’m just unique in how I feel, dunno, just had to share my thoughts lol.
For real. I remember when I quit Facebook I stopped getting invited to things because people would just make FB events and call it good. Like close friends wouldn’t even realize I didn’t know about an event. Even now there’s an outdoor events group I wanted to join but they only organize on Facebook and I don’t want to make an account.
you know, they say that when asked but having a flip phone and no home internet is very possible.
I bet this is more about the stress of being constantly available to your boss, your parents, your teachers, your neediest friends than about wanting a world without technology.
I think you’re right on the money, I recently took a vacation and i had the luxury to turn everything off I wanted and truly enjoy it, most Americans can’t do that.
I think it’s both that and not having real community ties. We don’t form close associations with each other like back when we had town events, neighborhood gatherings, people belonged to more clubs, recreational groups, labor unions, etc.
I wonder if there was an attempt to ask people about television, too.
True. Though we’re blaming the wrong thing in that case, we don’t have town events and neighborhood gatherings because local communities don’t have the money or a set town space anymore since the public square has been corporatized over the last few decades. Everything’s been monetized, loitering laws have criminalized just hanging out. Real life has the same problem the internet has.
Agreed. I think it’s more that we have been fooled on a superficial level into thinking that online interactions have filled the void (we’re on “social media” after all). So we still recognize that there’s something profound missing from our lives, but what that thing actually is has become kind of obfuscated. The dilemma then becomes whether to 1. blame technology, or 2. blame ourselves individually (“there must just be something wrong with me”). And either way it leads away from the radical solution of rebuilding those local, deep connections with our communities.
Do people really want to go back to the dark ages before Wikipedia existed? I know I don’t. Knowledge is power, and the Internet is a treasure trove of it, if you know where to look.
That said, I do want to go back to computers that obeyed only their users and no one else. Malicious hardware like TPM and Pluton is really scary.
I feel like, for the 35-54 bracket at least, this must be less about giving up all the modern conveniences we have today but more about wishing they could raise their children in that simpler time. You don’t want your kids to be left out of what’s new and cool but you also don’t want them exposed to EVERYTHING these platforms bring. It’s a tight rope to walk and I’m not looking forward to it when my kids are older. I know a lot of people who have gone down the road of, “I didn’t have a cell phone growing up, my kids won’t either.” But it’s not very realistic in today’s world.
I agree with your assessment. I have a lot to say about this, and I’m glad to have found this article, as I’ve been having some serious inner turmoil about this lately, and this makes me feel a bit like I’m not totally alone or crazy. (But also I can’t find a link to the original survey, which makes it hard to trust, as I can’t find any description of the methodology or the exact wording of the questions)
I’m an older Millenial (sometimes consider Gen X, depending on the terminology used) with young kids. It’s true that I would rather have them brought up 30 years ago than today. Sometimes when I see posts about parents letting their young kids (like let’s say 10) have their own smartphone and then complain about, people get snarky like “You’re the parent. If you don’t like it, just take their smartphone away.”
But it is a tightrope to walk. I don’t want them expose them something like Instagram, which gives them eating disorders, depression, anxiety, chips away at their sense of privacy, etc. But I also don’t want them to be “the weird kid” who can’t relate to any of their peers. When I was growing up, I remember "the weird kid"s who weren’t allowed to watch TV, weren’t to play video games, etc. I can recognize that in many ways they probably benefited from not sitting in front of the TV for hours each day, but I can also recognize they probably didn’t benefit from not being able to talk to any of the rest of us about the latest episode of Fresh Prince. I do see it as a balancing act between teaching them that there’s a lot about their generation that sucks, but also letting them experience enough of it to see for themselves, and relate to the other kids around them.
Do people not realize they can just log off? Go watch TV, it’s still there. Turn off your phone, it has a power button. Read a book or go outside. None of the pre-internet options have gone away.
I mean, yes, that is true for your spare time. But with the way things are working now, everything has to happen immediately, you might feel you need to be available 24/7, even if you don’t technically.
Work in general is more fast-paced because of it (emails and phone calls over snail mail), everything you do is attached to your phone making it difficult to turn it off (banking, cards, travel apps, dating apps etc).
In the purest sense, yes, you can take breaks from it all, but it’s still there, and while I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon, I do believe we’d benefit as a society from being less chronically online (I say writing this on an app for a federated social media site, but y’know, small steps).
Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve kept office hours for the totality of my career thus far, nearly 25 years. Most of my colleagues do as well. We all understand that we have lives outside of work, and that those lives take precedence. So long as we all get our shit done, nobody much cares about when you’re clocked in and when you’re not, outside of core hours (around 10 to 3 each day). If we want to turn off our phones, nobody much gives a shit so long as we’re back on the chat the next day.
Like I said to the other commenter, I think I must have been unclear, because I’m not even talking about working in your free time. I don’t believe I stated that in my original comment at all.
I’m just saying everything is so much more fast-paced now due to technology which I think in turn makes it more difficult to relax, plus you have to engage with your phone for important matters as everything important happens online, like the examples I mentioned, so even if you want to turn it off, you might feel like you cannot.
That’s a discussion about working conditions. Europeans aren’t having to put up with being available after work hours. Sane workplaces in the US don’t do that either.
It is difficult. Using corporate technology is easy and addictive. Not everybody is strong enough to escape from this comfort.
I like the internet. It’s been integral in my life becoming myself. I’ve met some of my favorite people through it.
It’s my hope that the era of social media comes to an end and the internet transitions back to how it used to be pre 2008 or so (iPhone and Facebook changed things), less centralized and all-consuming. A return to smaller communities as opposed to these larger algorithmic, advertiser-servicing platforms. Discord servers and focused forums. Communities of friends over public places to chase clout. In addition to handy services like shopping, banking, maps, etc. In essence, the internet as a tool rather than a social expectation. Because in many ways it is a really powerful tool, and I don’t want to see that go away and I don’t think it ever will at this point.
There are cracks showing in the social media model, Twitter and reddit in particular at the moment, but it yet remains a hope that we can turn it back to a more positive thing in our lives.
