Research: Nostalgia

Why do some people still cling to old technologies?
People have very different motives for collecting and using old products instead of the new. Some people have a need to feel different and unique, and they might feel trapped in a mass producing, endlessly consuming culture. Thus, they search for things that will set them apart from other people. Another group of people might collect old stuff out of nostalgia, and yet another group may be convinced that old products and technologies are of better quality than the new ones. Also, you see an increasing group of environmentally aware people who prefer to use old stuff out of ideological reasons.




The Photograph
Digital photography is a very good example that a new solution can change your way of thinking, your way of perceiving. Remember when you used film cameras, and you never knew what the picture would look like before you had developed it three weeks later? Digitalization changed that. Now you spend much more time taking the “right” picture by constantly deleting the ones you didn’t like. But the good thing is that you actually can manage to take a decent picture, instead of discovering that your finger was in front of the lens on your friend’s wedding picture when you develop it.
But what happened to printing the pictures? Since cameras became digital, everybody puts their photos into their computer, but rarely prints them out. What about our old photo albums – are they dying out like the dinosaurs?
Also for professional photographers, the introduction of digital cameras has been a blessing. Back in the 80`s, photojournalists had to carry around tons of equipment, develop their film in makeshift laboratories in the bath tubs of hotel rooms, scan and send the picture home to the main office over an unstable telephone line so it would make the deadline for the newspaper the next day. Today, technology allows these photographers to send pictures straight from their cameras to the office by the touch of a button.
Photographers that still use old techniques like Polaroid, Hasselblad and other film cameras, say that the “feeling” is different in the printed picture. According to them, the grain in the film adds its own quality and touch to it. It is mainly photographers that use their camera in art-related work, that still use film.



And then we have letters and postcards. What is so special about receiving a postcard? I think what makes it so special is that you know someone took time and effort to send it to you, and when you receive it, it has traces of its long path: A coffee stain it picked up in the café where it was written, the postage stamp it received at the post office in Cairo. Finally, it finds its way to a suburb in Norway. Then, after reading it, you put it in your big and messy drawer in the hallway. Three years later when you are cleaning up, you find it by surprise and read through it again.
Now we have wireless internet on every corner and tools like sms, mms, email, Msn, Skype and Facebook. Why should we spend valuable vacation time running around looking for stamps and a post office?




Music
And what about music? Today we have Ipod’s and mp3 players in our cell phones, and with an easy “click”, you can listen to your favorite songs. So why do people have a special relationship to old records? Of course they persist that the sound quality is better, and more “real”, but there is something else about it. Holding a record, while you lift the stylus arm and set the needle gently down on the record. A little “squeak” occurs, and the song starts. What a fantastic and interactive way to put your favorite songs on. But of course most of them have an iphone in their pocket, since it is “really practical”. So maybe it is ok to use both? One for different moods and needs?



Antiques
There is something about collecting antiques, that is different from buying a new couch at Ikea, or even a high quality brand. Normally when you buy an antique piece of furniture or a car, you buy it to refurnish it and spend time on it, so it can regain a quality of being “new”. So why not buy a new one instead? Talking with people that collect antiques, they tell me it is all about the feeling. The feeling of taking care of this old fantastic product that someone many years ago worked on with finesse and perfection (that many of the collectors feel we lack today), is a incredible rush. For many of them, there is also a sustainable part of it; to take care of and use something used, instead of buying something new, is important. The materialism these days are provocative to many people, too.