Many Gen Z are now looking back at their past and childhood, this really affects the studies of Gen Z and they tend to start drifting into space and according to the Haris Poll by the New York Times in 2023, they did a survey , and 60% of Gen Z (which was the only generation interviewed) wished that they could go back to a time when technology was not as popular and not everything was plugged in.

Nostalgia has an effect on everyone and how it effects us is through the media, making things like store closings and building demolitions seem like such a dramatic life or death situation. They also make it a big deal so that people will feel bad about the store closing and ask themselves questions like " Oh no, I should have went there before this store closed". The media wants us to feel guilty and this kind of accidentally causes nostalgia.When someone is content with their life and are enjoying the present they usually fell less nostalgia(not that nostalgia is a bad thing) unless they are happily reflecting on their life and thinking about something from the past causes certain parts of your brain to react. if you are in a positive mood and life is good there will be less yearning for the past.

We did extensive research online to find our information about nostalgia and looked within ourselves to find the memories we feel nostalgic about and decided what triggered those memories to resurface. There are two kinds of nostalgia, how to solve is shifting your perspective and instead of being guilty, you should shift to think, " Its okay, memories will never die but they will always live in our hearts." Nostalgia has two forms, good and bad. When it's good, you remember good heartfelt emotions and memories. Research has shown that nostalgia can be of great stress relief or distraction from pain, many people use it as a way to cope with stress. My partner and I both have shared some personal nostalgic memories we have and sometimes it helps to just talk about it.

Nostalgia is a psychological study that has been investigated by scientists for a while, the word nostalgia originates from the greek word nostos, Modern Latin and German word heimweh which means to be homesickness.Nostalgia is a common response to change. -typically caused by negative emotions but usually results in a mood boost and increased positive emotions. - Nostalgia is a sentimental dwelling to be in the past and a longing of homesickness and an affection of the past and a yearning of the past. Nostalgia - It means a sentimental or dwelling to stay in the past.

Many of the Gen Z was (including me) that were born in a time when the transition between the 2000s and early-mid 2010s, the hardest part is that during your childhood you would think that these things last forever but in reality, they don't. The nostalgia hits back to the time when Toys "R" Us and other retro stores like Payless Shoesource were the hit of our childhood.Despite all this, the media

these are some of our personal experiences growing up in the early 2000s and early-mid 2010s. As a kid I(Solomon), grew up with malls, I thought they were the best place ever and at times when shopping with my parents, one of the most boring places on earth, There were a few malls in particular that bring the most nostalgia, not just malls but certain stores too. 1. Northland Mall\, Brentwood village. This is number one because as a kid I grew up coming to this mall with my mom and seeing all the retro old school 90s vibe that was there. It was like no other mall as I got older, I started to see that this mall was much like a time capsule stuck in the 90s. It had those plants like palm trees, your typical mall in the 90s although I never experienced the 90s and wasn’t born that time, this mall made me feel like I was in the 90s. But this mall was rather quiet than other malls like market mall or crossiron or chinook. This mall only had about 5 anchor stores and about 3 to 4 permanent food court stores, at the time of its closing the mall still had the retro massage chairs, the kids play area, big large glass ceilings a reflection of the 2000s style including a light green roof and glass, though there wasn't much inside, I'm still pretty sad that it got demolished.

2.North hill Centre (Solomon) During my recent visit to the North hill centre, the place seemed so different, the mall signs on the glass door when you first walk in shows the old anchor store that used to be there, even the old logo of Sears hadn't been taken down yet. The mall that once felt lively, jolly and happy now felt dead, I quickly moved towards the area with more people as it crept me out that there was nearly no one in one of the mall corners, as soon as we walked in, the shops of weird fortune tellers and broken kiosks with a "do not sit on " signs and stores that seem lively and yet house no one except the products, and probably the manager. The majority of the shops and people were at the food court, Winners, Dollarama, and the very alive Safeway. I went into Winners and bought some clothes and felt a wave of the 2000s as even though the sign facing the inside of the mall was new and modernized, the external sign that probably used to be a 90s style grand colourful entry to the mall was painted over with hints and traces of crumbling black paint and beneath all the black is the yellow and reds and greens that most likely were the colour of the 90s. Though the mall was rennovated in June 2000, the expanion of the winners in 2017. There are said to have been more changes internally and internally physically, the stylized columns of the 90s and the tenant of the anchor Safeway Canada was moved to the west end where it replaced the Supervalu and now sits where it moved to in the west end. Two twin 8 storey high residential condo towers were built in 2001-2004 in the southwestern parking space of the mall and from then on, it was no longer just a shopping mall and was now turned into a mixed use shopping and living area and centre of community. Although the interior has changed the exterior theatre area was spared from any kind of modernization as well as a separate side entrance to the mall matches to the theatre entrance. and the mall on the north side feels like the 90s, 2000s, and feels like time never changed. I have used in this project many pictures I have taken from my experience at North Hill Mall. The mall on the west side close to the Safeway has a very one of a kind sign that shows the malls iconic sun above a 2000s cartoonish font with its bold letters. This kind of sign brings many people back down "Memory Lane" to show them that not all of them are gone. The sun featured your typical standard king of 2000s Sun with it's old school yellow and American sky blue and more old school decor.

When I(Aubrey) am triggered by nostalgia I am taken back to before my parents were divorced. There are many things that trigger my nostalgia but they are all very different and specific, these are some of them: 1. There is a forested area in my nighborhood that my family and I would walk through almost every day. After my parents got divorced I didn't see that forest for 6 years. now every time I walk through that forest I am reminded of all the fun we had there. 2. I have a scar on my lower palm that I got from the space heater in our old houses garage\, it is very faint but whenever I notice it I remember our old house's garage and all the projects we worked on together\, including a bat box that is now put up at my dad's current house. 3. nose hill was very close to the house my parents first house in calgary and we would drive past it every day and offense walk through there it reminds me of many\, many childhood experiences. 4. my brother has this old puppet hermit crab that he has had since he was a toddler whenever I see that crab I remember teaching him how put things away and clean up when he was very small and how proud I was of him. (the hermit crabs name is harm) Looking back I agree with the research nostalgia is a common response to change.

Deeper into the science of nostalgia. Nostalgia is not triggered by certan chemicals but by experiences,

Sometimes people who work for demolitioning old fashioned buildings from their childhood because they had a bad experiance during their chidhood, they then go to work for a job that makes them design newer buildings that help to modernize old ones. But then all of a sudden they step back and look at a different perspective, sit down and think, I am destroying my past and suddenly they think of all the great memories they ever had during the childhood and completlly forget the old bad experiance they had. Then that person may help other people to raise awarness and to try to help preserve and restore old fashioned buildings.

Nostalgia Science Facts. -nostalgia is not triggered by certan chemicals but by familiar experiences, smells, objects, sounds, places, or even just by the feeling of lonelyness. -when we say that nostalgia offen ends in a positive mood boost the brain is literally releasing the chemical dopamine, seritonin and oxytoson. -the parts of the brain that control nostagia are: the media prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus.

To conclude, Nostalgia is an emotion we feel when we encounter familiar experiences, smells, objects, sounds, places, or feel lonely. This feeling causes our brain to release the hormones oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. This results in a positive mood boost. Nostalgia is descent from the greek word nostos, Modern Latin and German word heimweh which means to be homesickness. Nostalgia is increasingly relevant to people our age as times change.

The Psychology of Nostalgia: Why Do We Feel a Longing for the Past? http://learning-mind.com/psychology-of-nostalgia/ [Patterns of brain activity associated with Patterns of brain activity associated with nostalgia: a social-cognitive neuroscience perspective nostalgiaLogbook]https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/17/12/1131/6585517#:\~:text=Thus%2C%20nostalgia%20involves%20brain%20activities,emotion%20regulation%20processing%20(anterior%20cingulate [: a social …](https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/17/12/1131/6585517#:\~:text=Thus%2C%20nostalgia%20involves%20brain%20activities\,emotion%20regulation%20processing%20(anterior%20cingulate) [Oxford Academic](https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/17/12/1131/6585517#:\~:text=Thus%2C%20nostalgia%20involves%20brain%20activities\,emotion%20regulation%20processing%20(anterior%20cingulate) [https://academic.oup.com › scan › article](https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/17/12/1131/6585517#:\~:text=Thus%2C%20nostalgia%20involves%20brain%20activities\,emotion%20regulation%20processing%20(anterior%20cingulate) The Psychology of Nostalgia - DK Therapy DK Therapy https://chicagocounselingandtherapy.com › the-psychol... What Nostalgia Is and What It Does - University of Southampton University of Southampton https://www.southampton.ac.uk › nostalgia › what-nostal… The Psychology of Nostalgia - Medium Medium https://medium.com › the-storm-of-words-un-said › the... (“Current Opinion in Psychology”)Jan 21, 2026 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X22002664 “UF Health (Nostalgia).” University of Florida Health Department, January 8, 2025 January 2025, https://online.aging.ufl.edu/2025/01/08/the-psychology-of-nostalgia/. (“Patterns of brain activity associated with nostalgia: a social-cognitive neuroscience perspective”) (“Speaking of Psychology: Does nostalgia have a psychological purpose? With Krystine Batcho, PhD”) (“Nostalgia and Well-Being in Daily Life: An Ecological Validity Perspective”)

Acknowledgement We would like to acknowledge Ms.Offord and Mr.Parent and the CYSF for giving us the opportunity to participate in the CYSF 2025-2026. Thank you so much for giving us a chance to really shine in our Science capabilities. Thank you to our sponsors and the U of C for letting us use the olympic oval for space for everyone who has worked on their project. Thank you for everyone who has offered time in their busy schedule to come help out with something everyone could really just push to the next person. I would like to acknowledge my partner Aubrey Rowland who has helped me with a majority of the projects. FInally, all of these citations of the authors of these specific websites and publishers.