Has Nokia Triggered Device Nostalgia?

The internet may only be a few decades old, but the amount of nostalgia we have for it rivals any other conventional media format—books, movies, photography all included. Perhaps it’s because human beings have a tendency to yearn for and idolise simpler times. Indeed, we seem to look back on the good ol’ days of the early internet with great fondness.

Today, it increasingly seems like our ‘net nostalgia’ is transcending the theoretical and becoming actual hardware—that is, updates on old classics we love in a modern-tech format. We’ve seen these kinds of tech reboots across gaming, phones and photography, and there seems to be something about them that creates a considerable amount of buzz. As one tech writer pointed out in the Guardian, “It could just be a marketing ploy, or a Hollywood-esque remake because the industry has run out of ideas. Or maybe it’s trying to tap into the feeling that modern life is too connected, harking back to a simpler time.”