“If you want to feel a pang of nostalgia at the center of your core, look no further,” reads the description of the ‘Right In The Childhood’ Facebook page. And indeed, for many people, the posts they share work like magic when it comes to evoking nostalgia; started back in 2020, the page has already amassed over 86K followers seeking such a feeling.
“Nostalgia seems to help root us in a sense of ourselves and our own history. We get a fuller sense of who we are today by understanding where we have come from,” professor of psychology at Stetson University, Christopher J. Ferguson, Ph.D., told Bored Panda in a recent interview.
“For that reason, people can sometimes feel a sense of nostalgia even for experiences or places that weren't entirely positive. In a sense, it is the earlier self that we miss, not necessarily the place or the event.”
Expanding on the thought that nostalgia can sometimes correlate to experiences one wouldn’t consider positive, Prof. Ferguson pointed out that it might have something to do with a phenomenon known as ‘nostalgia bias’.
“Our memories are far from reliable and we may have a tendency to remember only parts of our past that fit whatever narrative we have about it,” he explained. “For instance, we may remember the times of our youth as having been far better than they actually were, and this can cause us to judge the present more harshly. You can see this in various memes expressing that the 1950s were a ‘simpler time’ where everyone lived happily, forgetting that the 1950s were marked by everything from polio to segregation.”
Despite the nostalgia bias, the feeling that makes one want to turn back the hands of time is in most cases a fairly pleasant experience, Dr. Ferguson says; unless one is comparing a beloved past against a disliked present, of course.
“Generally, it is a way for us to connect with our past and give us a sense of continuity over time. Rather than merely living in the moment, it places us in the historical arc of our own life, creating narrative and a life trajectory.”
Those prone to feeling nostalgic know that sometimes, the sentiment arises over things or occurrences we didn’t even get to experience firsthand, such as a popular video game we never owned ourselves or a TV show we never really got to watching, despite it being the craze at a certain time.
According to Ferguson, it happens because in most such cases, there is some associative relationship between the stimuli and the time period in question. “The thing may look or feel, or show examples of things we remember from the time period or be associated with someone else we knew then who did have that experience. As with all memories, nostalgic ones can find themselves in associative networks.”
While such things as video games or TV shows that were popular at a certain time are common nostalgia triggers, there are way more than two that can make one reminisce over the good old days.
According to a GWI survey of netizens aged 16 to 64 who feel nostalgic about the media, movies are the main trigger of nostalgia, followed by music, TV shows, photographs, books and magazines, video games, advertisements, and radio respectively.
Discussing nostalgia triggers, Prof. Ferguson suggested that for some people, aging often works like one. “Nostalgia appears more common among older adults; of course, they also have more to be nostalgic about.
“It can also occur with significant life change. For instance, both the birth of children and the death of parents may cause people to feel nostalgic about their own childhoods.
“Perhaps our childhood community has undergone significant changes, such that it no longer resembles what we remember from our youth,” the expert continued. “This can give us a sense of the world more or less slipping away from us. We seem to like to think of the universe as being fairly static, and as it moves away from that, it can remind us of our own mortality. Memories of the past can, as such, be soothing.”