I lived like it was the ’90s for a week. It was lonely, but not in the way you’d expect

As a member of the undefined facet of Gen Z wedged between 1997 and 2003, I can’t lay claim to the “90s kid’ label. But it hasn’t stopped me from daydreaming about life in that era, long before smartphones and algorithms took over.

Was the grass really greener in those analogue, largely unplugged days? I decided to rewind the clock to 1996 and spend a week offline to find out. 

The game plan

If I could tell 2008 Charlotte she’d one day long for an era where the 6pm news was taped over her Bridge to Terabithia VHS, I just know she’d punch me in the boob.

But today, as I grapple with a shameful average screen time of seven hours and the constant threat of digital burnout, I’m excited to journey back to a time when Friends episodes were not yet viewed via re-runs. Devising my guidelines for the week, I placed particular emphasis on the ’90s’ “slow-living” ethos that would hopefully reboot my tech-addled brain.

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For the experiment, I would:

• Dumb-down my smartphone – in-built wellness features would be used to lock every app on my phone (including social media), save for calls and alarms.
• Inform my friends I’d only be reachable via cold call, and map out some concrete social plans for the week ahead.
• Only use my laptop for work and dedicated ‘administration’ timeslots for unavoidable digital tasks.
• Strike up passing conversations with strangers. Chat. Engage. Ask them for the time. Dare to be perceived as insane in public.
• Drag my film camera from the depths and lock and load it with a trusty roll of Kodak Gold.

• Carry a novel – plucked from the purgatory of my ‘to-read’ pile
• MAHGA: Make Analogue Hobbies Great Again. Draw, write, scrapbook, bake – heck, do a puzzle if I must.
• The metro and Uber are out; the train, the bus, my own two legs and embracing chronic lateness are so in.
• Recreate appointment TV by rummaging around for my box set of ’90s TV relic Early Edition and schedule set times to rewatch this over the week.

Armed with this hodgepodge collection of obsolete media and a pre-Y2K mindset, I set out.

Day 1: A rude awakening

There’s something to be said about the look on people’s faces when you pull a full-sized map of the Sydney Metropolitan Area from the back pocket of your jeans.

This is the reality I immediately met on my analogue odyssey: while ’90s living is an enjoyable premise, it runs the risk of appearing performative or holier-than-thou in 2026.

I also felt the weight of curious eyes when inspiration struck in a public setting and I drew out my pen and pad to scribble the thought down, my Notes app a distant memory.

As I shook out my cramping fingers, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was truly the same hand that once bashed out 2000-word English essays in high school.

Day 2: The lonely reality of bursting the bubble

I haven’t made eye contact with a single stranger in two days. No, really.

While this experiment has already served as a reminder of what the inside of a train looks like, analogue living in 2026 is lonely – and not in the way you’d expect.

The social dynamic among friends and acquaintances has been largely the same thus far, if not better. It’s my interactions with strangers, or lack thereof, that give me pause.

With your phone doubling as a digital pacifier, you remain blissfully unaware of how absorbed you are until you look up, choose to be present – and find absolutely no one else is in the same boat with you.

One viral phrase doing the rounds on social media immediately springs to mind: “You can go back, but nobody will be there.”

I wasn’t under the delusion passersby would sense my phone-free aura and tuck their own devices away in solidarity, but I certainly didn’t expect this. I can count the number of people I caught looking up on one hand. No one smiled at one another – not even an exchange of friendly nods.

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in the ’90s any more.

Day 3: ‘Slow’ living?

I never intended to put the “slow” in slow-living, but time blindness tends to take hold when you don’t have a phone clock to glance at.

As I don’t own a watch, the simple act of time-telling became a masterclass in scanning environments for a clock tower – or identifying the most approachable-looking stranger to bother.

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Without Google Maps, my late morning also became a logistical crisis, reuniting me with the long-forgotten joy of traipsing five extra blocks after disembarking at the wrong train stop.

You know what? Google Maps makes us all far too destination-oriented, anyway. Forget efficiency over enjoyment – give me meandering any day of the week, though perhaps not the ones when I’m already running late for work.

Day 4: The sheer weight of it all

My romantic dream of analogue media quickly collided with the back-breaking reality of lugging it everywhere with me. 

No one informed me living like the ’90s would mean a bag weighed down by everything and the kitchen sink in lieu of one. single. phone.

The conveniences I overlooked are now glaring. Gone are the days of whipping out my phone for photos; I’ve now engaged an entire SLR, only to find the majority of the developed roll looks like it’s been shot from a moving vehicle.

In trading seamless digital efficiency for the friction of the physical world, I’ve also lost various items, including my EFTPOS card, in record time. As I trudge to CommBank to order a replacement, I ponder the possibility of asking work to expense my chiro bills.

Day 5: Has my brain healed itself?

Although the prospect of being alone with my thoughts for perhaps the first time in 14 years was daunting, it turns out it’s not half bad.

Sans headphones or screens, I opted to sit with discomfort in moments of boredom, oftentimes finding my mind wandering in unexpected ways.

I couldn’t help but feel my typically busy mind was being suspiciously well-behaved. It’s difficult to know what level of placebo was at play here – but I swear my focus, attention span and capacity for clear, rational thought had increased tenfold.

The grandma deep within has burst forth, filling my time with baking, reading and a newfound penchant for newspaper crosswords.

Where previously my burnt-out brain had little capacity for passion projects, I’ve now found myself reaching for art supplies and embracing a long-lost love.

Day 6: Friends S26E6 - ‘The One Where Charlotte Shows Up at Your House’

While I wasn’t afforded the privilege of living in the New York apartment adjacent to my rag-tag team of 20-somethings, my week, surprisingly, has not been short on socialisation.

From communal dinners and puzzling sessions to movie nights and pub catchups, the manner in which the people in my life rose to the occasion, embracing my ’90s endeavours, truly filled my cup.

This week, I’m officially a yes-man. When a friend calls to invite me on a last-minute hike, the only appropriate response is, “Why the hell not?”

Gone are the days of talking to my best friend’s mother on the landline to ask if she could play, or hightailing to her place on my razor scooter. But through rigorous pre-planning and cold calls, I had a social schedule for the week planned down to the hour.

Yet as the time rolled around to meet mates for a movie night, I was overcome by the terrible, niggling feeling our plans had been cancelled or forgotten, and that I was about to show up at their front door with no prior confirmation.

I steeled myself as I ascended those steps, and – to my immediate relief – found them all awaiting my arrival with ample movie snacks at the ready. They were expecting me, and all my anxiety had, thankfully, been for naught.

Day 7: Snap back to reality

Anything worth knowing this week I’ve heard through the grapevine, the rumour-mill – or an occasional copy of the Sydney Morning Herald.

There’s no denying 2026 is a bad time to be well-informed. The privilege of shutting it all off and existing in a bubble free of war, violence, artificial intelligence and social injustice being blared through a screen in my hand did wonders for my mental health.

Sooner or later, though, the bubble always bursts. When I finally disabled my phone’s ’90s mode, the ensuing waterfall of all I missed was enough to send me (and my phone) into psychosis.

The government back home had proposed a bill that would make it easier to sell off conservation land. There’d been approximately 10,000 updates on the war in Iran. Dua Lipa’s wedding photos had dropped. And more notifications than I care to admit ram-raided through the stratosphere within point-two milliseconds.

My screen-free week was over, and with it, my peace.

The verdict

Our parents were right. It really is these damned phones – but removing myself from the daily hubbub, muting the noise and sitting with my thoughts would only get me so far.

The inconvenient reality is that, as much as we may yearn for a return to simpler times, many physical systems central to that period no longer exist in 2026.

The energy that defined the analogue era now belongs to a timeline that has already closed. It forces us to realise we can only ever revisit these periods as observers – or, in my case, trialists – as opposed to active participants.

The digital attention economy will continue its indefinite growth, and for better or worse, society’s core infrastructure – employment, banking, public services – will continue to operate around expectations of constant digital connectivity.

It’s almost enough to make it all seem pointless – until, of course, I check my screen time for the week. Just under an hour and a half, all of which was spent on unavoidable work tasks, rather than personal use.

By simply choosing to look up, I’d bought myself back six whole hours of my day, seven times.

In approximately 42 hours, I’d reconnected with hobbies and passions that’d long been kicked to the wayside. No longer were they collateral damage in my brain’s war against digital burnout.

While we can never fully return to what once was, we can sure as hell thread elements of that time throughout day-to-day life. Even if “nobody else is there” – you are. And reclaiming your own life will always be worth it.