Giles Crouch | Silver Magazine

Nostalgia

Why Do We Love Nostalgia?

Nostalgia plays an essential role in our mental health as we age A song from 1978 suddenly hits, and you remember your cousin’s car, which had an 8-track player. You laugh to yourself as you sing along. You remember the smell of your first apartment and the late-night parties, where you’d switch vinyl records. You feel a warmth as you recall these memories. That’s not just your brain being sentimental. It’s one of humanity’s most sophisticated survival strategies! As a cultural anthropologist, who mainly works at the intersection of technology and culture, nostalgia isn’t so much about living in the past as it is about using the past to live more fully in the present. When you’re reminiscing, whether by yourself or with friends and family, your mind is doing something quite clever: it’s mining your personal and collective history for wisdom, connection, and resilience that can serve you now.

Giles Crouch July 17, 2025

Nostalgia

From Walkman to Wireless

How personal music changed our lives The boombox was ready, a fresh new cassette tape loaded you’d bought that afternoon. You’d just got the boombox for your 14th birthday last week. Now you’d be able to record the top songs you loved on tonight’s top 40! You just hoped the DJ wouldn’t talk over the start of the song or the end! Today you can access millions of songs on your phone, portable MP3 player, laptop, tablet, and even stream from your car. Oh and you don’t own any of that music, you just rent it today. Although people still buy CDs and there’s a niche market of vinyl records and record players. There was something special about those days of recording songs off the radio. The excitement of going to the record store and buying a 45 to build your collection. How maybe you even decorated some of your

Giles Crouch December 2, 2024

Nostalgia

Oh, Those Old Fitness Gadgets!

Remember the days when getting in some exercise meant more than just setting your smartwatch, ensuring your phone was connected, choosing the right playlist, and finding earbuds that wouldn’t fall out? Back when we had the THIGHMASTER, and Suzanne Somers wore her bright leggings, telling us we too could have thighs of steel in just a few easy workouts from the comfort of our living rooms while we watched the afternoon soaps. And then, just a few months later, it would poke out from under the couch in the rec room, haunting us and collecting dust bunnies. Maybe it was the way the springs creaked and groaned, the feeling of being empowered by a future vision of ourselves—ripped and sleek on the dance club floors, putting John Travolta to shame! Thanks, StairMaster! Let’s not forget the Ab Roller—the wheel of wonder that whispered promises of washboard abs but simply delivered

Giles Crouch September 1, 2024

Longevity

When We Live Beyond 200 Years Old

Muzi was in an upbeat mood. It was his 185th birthday and he was having his third retirement party after his contracted 20 year tenure as a university professor. Before that he’d been an aerospace engineer and prior to that an architect. His latest health review projected he’d live to around 220 years old and he’d accumulated enough wealth to retire to his cottage outside of Cape Town. What will it mean when we can live beyond 200 years? Perhaps 300 years? Is this possible and if so, what does that mean for different cultures, the impact on social norms, economic and political systems? What about advancements in AI and robotics as part of that whole? Our current economic systems are not designed for such a situation. In developed nations, they work around a relatively predictable lifespan. A period of growth and education, career and family time with an accumulation

Giles Crouch July 18, 2024

Nostalgia

The Technologies We Loved & Why

How nostalgia for old technology forms our social bonds Remember those evenings when you sat by your boom box, fingers ready to leap into action to press the play/record buttons on the tape deck as soon as the song started? You just had to get that latest hit song recorded! You’d hope with bated breath that the DJ wouldn’t talk into the start of the song. And hit stop before the ads came on. Perhaps you took a computer science course in junior high, and you learned Logos and made a ping pong game? You knew just what to do when the cassette tape got stuck in the player, either jammed up from a rewind or from just playing that tape over and over. Ah, those orange-coloured foam headphone covers. Our parents telling us to be careful walking into traffic. Today we have hundreds of millions of songs of all

Giles Crouch September 7, 2023

Mind

Why Does Technology Seem so Overwhelming?

Robots taking over manufacturing jobs. Autonomous cars and delivery trucks. Drones in warfare but also delivering aid in disasters. Webcams on our porches. Surveillance capitalism and our privacy. Disinformation on social media, doxing and trolls. Cryptocurrencies, scams and hackers. Constant notifications. Augmented and virtual reality. Genetic engineering. Nanotechnologies clearing clogs in our arteries. Brain computer interfaces. And so much more. We are feeling overwhelmed with all the technology come at us today. Yes, we are overwhelmed. You’re not alone. But why do we feel so overwhelmed? How did we get to this point and what can we do as technology inevitably embeds itself deeper into our lives? There are, I think, two primary reasons we feel so overwhelmed. The first has to do with our ability as a species, to adapt. The second has to do with technology itself, specifically digital technologies and their exponential advancement. Our Ability to Adapt

Giles Crouch September 26, 2022

Longevity

The good things social media is giving the world

As a digital anthropologist, I’ve spent a lot of time in online communities, studying social media as well as netnographic research and humans using technology in the real world. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly over the past decade. While much may seem bad, I’ve seen a fair bit of good and I’m starting to see some broader positive societal trends coming out of social media. Let’s take a look. Animals: From cats being mean to silly and cute dogs and wildlife caught in the act, we can see a shift across many countries and cultures in how we see animals. From pets to wildlife. Although there isn’t any hard scientific evidence yet, anecdotally, we can suggest that humans, who are also animals, are perhaps evolving more meaningful relationships with our fellow animals ad we learn about them and how we can interact. The good that may

Giles Crouch November 13, 2021

Healthy Recipes

Orange spiced hot chocolate

Who doesn’t like a steaming mug of hot chocolate on a cold day? Zest it up with some orange! Try this spiced-up twist on an old school classic. With a great blend of aromatic spices, dark chocolate and a slight nuance of orange, this winter favourite no longer need be a guilty pleasure. Share with family, friends or carollers at your door; either way, it’s a “no guilt” way to get your chocolate fix. INGREDIENTS 4 SERVINGS | PREPARATION 15 MINS PLUS OVERNIGHT » 1L 1% or soy milk » 7 oz dark chocolate — chopped up » 1½ tsp coco powder » zest of 1 orange » 3 cardamom pods » ½ cinnamon stick » 2 cloves » ½ Thai red chili » pinch of kosher salt PREPARATION Place chocolate and milk in a medium sauce pot and whisk over medium heat until chocolate has completely melted. Toast cardamom

Giles Crouch November 12, 2021

Longevity

Mr Speaker! Behind the scenes with the Speaker of the House

It’s not that you haven’t heard of the Speaker of the House. It’s just that you don’t know much about that role in government. Most speakers like to keep it that way. They are happy to stay out of the limelight. For many Canadians, the only time we see the Speaker is on news clips or, if you’re a political news junkie, on C-Span when the House is in session. The Hon. Geoff Regan has served 24 years as a Member of Parliament, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and four years as Speaker of the House in the first Trudeau government. I wanted to take Canadians behind the scenes of the Speaker of the House to understand the history and importance of the role. While we’re talking, Geoff has CNN on mute and I am streaming Jeff Bezos launch into space. Geoff served as Speaker from December of 2015 to

Giles Crouch July 23, 2021