I Tried Living Like It Was 2010 Again — And It Quietly Broke Me

Nostalgia is sneaky. It doesn’t just show you the past; it edits it for you. It cuts out the awkward silences, the cheap shampoo, the bad phone cameras, and leaves you with sunsets, inside jokes, and a version of yourself who always seemed a little lighter.

For years, 2010 sat in my head like that — a golden, glitchy memory of burned CDs, early Facebook, and late‑night calls on phones that actually had buttons.So this year, after yet another doomscrolling session and a mini breakdown over screen time stats, I did something dramatic: I decided to live like it was 2010 again.

Not for a day, not for a weekend — for a full month. No TikTok, no Instagram Reels, no constant notifications, no streaming rabbit holes. Just old‑school tech, simple routines, and the version of the internet that felt… slower.It sounded wholesome. It turned out to be one of the most uncomfortable experiments I’ve ever done.Step One: Breaking Up With 2025The first step was easy to describe and horrible to do: I deleted most of my apps. Instagram, TikTok, X, Snapchat — gone.

I kept basic messaging, email, and a browser, but rearranged my home screen so it looked hilariously empty. I dug out an old pair of wired earphones, because if I was going to suffer, I might as well commit.I set my phone to grayscale so it felt less like a slot machine and more like a boring tool. I changed my lock screen to a blurry photo from 2010: me and my friends crammed into a frame, cheeks pressed together, eyes red from the camera flash.

Back then, “editing” a picture meant maybe adding a filter on some janky website.Within a few hours, I realized how deeply my brain was wired to reach for distractions. My thumb kept going to where Instagram used to be, like a ghost limb. I’d unlock my phone, stare at the empty screen, and then lock it again. It was like walking into a mall that suddenly had no stores — just white walls and your own reflection.Step Two: Relearning How to Be BoredIn 2010, boredom was normal. You stared out of bus windows.

You counted ceiling tiles. You read the back of cereal boxes. Now, boredom feels like a glitch to be patched immediately with content — anything loud, fast, and endless.Without my usual apps, boredom came back fast. Waiting in line? Nothing to scroll. Sitting in the bathroom? No quick video. Lying in bed at night? Just me, my thoughts, and the hum of the fan.At first, it felt peaceful.

My mind wandered in a way it hadn’t in years. I remembered old classmates’ names. Random songs from the early 2010s came back, uninvited. I found myself humming old ringtone tunes and laughing at how dramatic everything felt back then.But after a few days, a darker layer surfaced. Under the noise I’d been using as wallpaper, there were things I had been successfully avoiding: unresolved anxieties, half‑forgotten regrets, fears about the future. Nostalgia had promised me a simpler time; instead, it handed me a clearer mirror.Without constant input, I had no easy way to drown myself. I couldn’t swipe away from my thoughts.

I had to actually sit with them. “Living like it’s 2010” didn’t just slow down my day — it turned up the volume on my own head.Step Three: Reconnecting the Old‑Fashioned WayIf I was going to commit to 2010, I couldn’t just lurk in silence. So I tried to reach out to people the way I used to: direct messages, long texts, actual phone calls.Instead of posting a story and hoping people replied, I sent individual messages: “Hey, how are you really doing?”

Instead of liking a photo and considering that “keeping in touch,” I picked up the phone. The first few calls were awkward. We’ve all become fluent in voice notes and half‑typed replies, but an actual live conversation? That felt almost intimate.Something surprising happened, though. Those calls went deeper, faster. Without the pressure to be entertaining or aesthetic, we talked about real stuff: burnout, breakups, money stress, health scares, therapy.

It felt like those late‑night 2010 calls where you lay in the dark and whispered into a cheap headset.But the experiment also exposed something I didn’t want to admit: in 2010, I had fewer responsibilities, fewer losses, and fewer reasons to be guarded. People I used to talk to every day were now basically strangers with familiar usernames. Some didn’t pick up. Some replied with “Sorry, so busy, let’s talk soon” — and we both knew “soon” might never come.Nostalgia had edited out the distance that time quietly builds between people.

Living like it was 2010 didn’t magically bring friendships back; it just showed me how many I had quietly lost.Step Four: The Myth of the “Simpler Time”As the weeks went by, I started to notice a pattern. Every time I thought, “Things were easier back then,” life would gently remind me: no, they were just different.In 2010, I worried about grades, crushes, parents, and what other people thought of my Facebook status. I felt lonely, messy, insecure — just in a different outfit, under a different interface. The problems weren’t smaller; my perspective was.

What made the nostalgia so powerful wasn’t the past itself; it was the way I’d been using it as a safe place to hide from the present. Whenever 2025 felt too overwhelming — news, climate, money, expectations — my brain ran back to “those days” like a kid hiding under a blanket.But here’s the twist: trying to relive that time stripped away the soft focus. I saw my younger self more honestly — anxious, confused, desperate to fit in.

The music was great, the memes were chaotic, the phones were indestructible, but the mental health struggles were real even if I didn’t have the words for them yet.The past hadn’t been as gentle as I remembered. I had just survived it and called the scar tissue “good times.”When the Experiment Quietly Broke MeAbout three weeks in, I had a night that cracked something open. I was lying in bed without my usual ritual of endless scrolling.

No videos. No timeline. Just quiet.And for the first time in a long time, I really felt how tired I was — not “sleepy” tired, but emotionally exhausted. From always trying to keep up. From chasing “better versions” of myself. From pretending that going back in time would somehow heal everything I hadn’t dealt with.I cried — not because 2010 was gone, but because I realized I had been carrying this fantasy that if I could just rewind, I would finally feel okay. Instead, “living like it was 2010” showed me that the real problem was never the year on the calendar.

It was the way I kept running from myself into screens, trends, and highlight reels, whether they were in 2010 or 2025.The experiment didn’t break me by taking away modern comforts. It broke me by taking away my excuses.What I Brought Back With MeI didn’t stay in 2010 forever. After the month, I reinstalled some apps. The color came back to my phone. The feeds came back, the memes, the noise, the temptation to get lost in everyone else’s life again.But I came back with a few rules:If I’m opening an app just because I feel anxious, I put the phone down instead.

If I miss someone, I message or call them directly instead of hoping they see my story.If I’m nostalgic, I let myself remember — but I don’t let myself live there.I still love the songs from that era. I still get hit with random waves of “God, I miss those days.” I still think about grainy photos, cheap headphones, and late‑night calls. Nostalgia is human. It’s not the enemy.

The real danger is when nostalgia becomes a hiding place instead of a memory.Living like it was 2010 again didn’t give me my old life back. It gave me something else: a clearer view of how much I’ve changed, how much I’ve avoided, and how much of my mental health depends on being present in the year I’m actually living in.The past is a nice place to visit. But it’s a terrible place to try and move back to.