Old Technology vs. Today’s Tech: What We Lost Along the Way
I’m a millennial, now in my thirties, and yes—I’ve reached that stage of life where I have a favorite grocery store, a preferred mug, and I grumble when the store changes its layout. My knees crack when I bend, and I regret it the next morning if I sleep wrong. But there’s one thing I’m grateful for: I got to witness life before the internet exploded, live through the revolution as it unfolded, and see where we’ve ended up today.
And let me tell you, somewhere along the way, technology lost its soul.
When Gadgets Had Soul
Back in the day, every new device felt like a leap into the future. I still remember holding my original Game Boy, then upgrading to the Game Boy Advance, the PSP, and eventually the Nintendo Switch. Each release brought something new to marvel at.
The same happened with phones. I went from a clunky old Motorola to a Sony Ericsson to a Nokia E51 running Symbian OS. That phone was a revelation—I even installed Quake on it. Playing a PC game I grew up with on a pocket-sized device felt impossible, yet it was in my hand.
But nothing compared to when I saw Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories running on the PSP—a full, open-world game in your pocket. The sense of freedom was overwhelming. You could hop on a scooter, wander the city, cause chaos, or explore from a handheld console. For a teenager, that wasn’t just technology. That was liberation.
Then smartphones changed everything. Suddenly, instead of waiting for the next specialized device, we had one machine that could do it all: gaming, music, internet, photos, videos. What once required a handful of gadgets now fits into a single device in your pocket.
On paper, that sounds like a dream. But in practice, something important slipped away.
The Rituals We Lost
When you wanted to play a game, you picked up a console. If you wanted music, you grabbed your CD player or MP3 player and listened to an album start to finish. To browse the internet, you booted up a computer. To watch a movie, you turn on the TV.
Each activity had its own ritual, its own dedicated tool. And those rituals gave meaning.
Now, one device does everything, and while that convenience is amazing, it also breeds distraction. The screen where I try to enjoy music buzzes with notifications. The phone on which I read is a gateway to endless scrolling. Instead of deep, intentional experiences, we drift into shallow, fragmented ones.
This is exactly the trap Cal Newport warns us about in Digital Minimalism. His point is not that technology is bad, but that when a single device collapses all our hobbies, work, communication, and entertainment into one glowing rectangle, we stop engaging with those activities on their own terms. We no longer choose—we react.
And that’s what I mean when I say we’ve lost the “soul” of technology. Old devices weren’t just tools; they shaped how we connected with what we loved. A Walkman meant albums and long walks. A Game Boy meant hours of focused play. A PSP meant losing yourself in Liberty City, carrying a whole world in your pocket. Each device carved out a small, meaningful corner of life.
Giving Technology Its Soul Back
Today, everything bleeds together on the smartphone screen. It’s convenient, but it also makes it harder to savor any one thing fully.
Maybe the solution is not to reject modern technology but to use it more intentionally, to rediscover the rituals and boundaries that old devices forced upon us, to separate work from play, distraction from delight.
That’s why I still find myself drawn back to older technologies. Playing on a Game Boy Color feels completely different from gaming on a phone. There’s no notification popping up, no temptation to multitask—just you, a cartridge, and the soft green glow of the screen. Journaling in a physical notebook brings a clarity that no app ever could. The scratch of the pen, the pause between thoughts, the permanence of ink—it forces you to slow down and reflect. Even something as simple as wearing a mechanical watch feels grounding. Instead of yet another glowing screen, you have a tiny piece of engineering on your wrist, ticking away with its own rhythm, reminding you of time passing in a tangible way.
Cal Newport would call this a form of digital minimalism. I think of it as giving technology its soul back. By choosing tools that do one thing well, we rediscover the joy of being present in that one thing. And maybe, in that simplicity, we regain some of the magic we’ve lost.
See You Soon!
