Digital cameras and wired earphones are back – and 'a bit more real'We're surrounded by more advanced tech in 2026, so why are young people going back to basics?22 hrs agoCulture

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’ve nearly fallen at the first hurdle – I’ve left my digital camera battery on charge at home.

Forgive me, I last took this camera out with me 15 years ago on a family holiday to the Canary Islands.

Take two. Now with the charged battery in hand, I’m taking my digital camera to a DJ set as an experiment.

It’s because older technology is having a bit of a moment – social media is full of people talking about why they’re going back to basics with the likes of digital cameras, wired headphones and early MP3 players.

Luckily I’m out with my photography-loving best friend, who helps adjust the settings on the camera and gets snapping while I’m otherwise engaged on the dancefloor.

The mere sight of us pulling out the camera and squinting through its tiny viewfinder draws attention – “I’ve not seen one of these in years”, a man remarks.

He’s right – digital cameras had their heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s, just before smartphones took off.

There are currently 42 million active film camera users globally, more than a third of these aged 18–30 and largely influenced by social media trends, according to a market research report last year.

So why, when we’re surrounded by more advanced tech here in 2026, are they seemingly making a resurgence?

For Lily Redman, a 26-year-old content creator from South Wales, digital cameras “capture a quality that my phone just can’t replicate”.

She’s been taking one on nights out and to concerts and feels the flash on her phone “is grainy and too high definition” compared to the “more smooth” finished product on a digital camera.

“I think people are looking for a bit of grit or something that feels a bit more real,” she says.

That may also explain why low exposure photos taken on iPhones and Androids – where people dodge ready-made filters to artificially crank down the exposure setting and produce a darker image – are also popular on socials right now.

With digital cameras offering an element of surprise when you plug in the memory card reader to your computer at home, digital cameras capture a moment in time.

“If I look back at photos my mum took when I was two, they look so old but when I look at photos I took five years ago, they look like they were taken yesterday,” says Redman.

“Phone photos have warped our perception of time.”

It’s not just digital cameras returning from the archives (or a dusty cupboard), but early MP3 devices like iPods too.

According to refurbished tech website Backmarket, iPods are “driving the trend” in sales of older MP3 devices with a 48% increase in sales between 2024 and 2025, with demand for MP3 and MP4 players “accelerating further into 2026”.

Cheri Sanih, 30, runs a Tumblr account about older technology which she says has gained thousands of followers recently.

As she scrolls through the music library on her mint green iPod, filled with album artwork from 15 to 20 years ago, childhood memories of receiving one as a Christmas present come flooding back.

For her, it’s all about nostalgically “wanting to remember simpler times”; being able to “bury into escapism”.

Sanih points out how her “phone is always getting notifications and sometimes I just want to be outside, blissfully listening to music”.

She thinks iPods have become popular again because of their “beautiful design” and the way the music player is “the first bit of technology really catering to humans with a less cluttered user interface”.

And speaking of back to basics, wired headphones are perhaps as simple as you can get, but again proving popular online.

These are now a daily staple for 23-year-old Monique Wellman-Mason from Bristol, who grew tired of losing her wireless earbuds.

“Every single time I get them out my bag I spend two minutes trying to detangle them which is a bit of a pain,” she jokes, “but at the same time I love that they have a microphone and I’m [always] connected to my phone”.

She tells the BBC that the clear mic is useful for her job as a social media manager and she enjoys being able to “spark that nostalgia”, while another positive is wired earphones are “really cheap” at about £20.

Monique made the switch from bluetooth wireless to wired earphones a few months back and says she hasn’t returned to the former since.

“Technology only goes up and we’re always looking for the quickest thing but this is a step back in a way – I love it,” she says.

Whether it’s digital cameras, iPods or wired earphones, does a renewed love for early-digital gadgets among some young people tell us something more?

It’s been on the mind of Andrew Przybylski, professor of technology and human behaviour at the University of Oxford.

Underpinning a fondness for more basic tech is “people’s desire on a very deep level to be in control of their experiences,” he argues.

He says the modern digital world often leaves us inflicted by decision paralysis – the inability to choose because there are so many options.

When a new series comes out, he explains, “binge watching it automatically” often feels like a decision that is made for us.

In contrast, when you choose to turn on a digital camera and play with its settings or add an album to your iPod library “you move towards something you want versus it coming at you”.

Andrew says “people want more than to just rent the things [and experiences] they’re passionate about” and that buying your own music or taking your own pictures creates a sense of connection.

He references Xbox’s server outage in late July, in which users couldn’t play games even if they owned the discs and how “nobody liked that”.

“Imagine if a book worked that way,” he adds.

Additional reporting by Amy Walker.