Having grown up at a time where I was forced to use typewriters and listen to vinyl LP records, I don't wax so nostalgic over those old technologies. As soon as I got my Commodore 64 and my Star Gemini 10x dot matrix printer, I never used a typewriter again!
Vinyl took a little longer to get off of as I had (and still have) a fairly significant vinyl collection.
Can I ask, do you find that the benefits that other respondents are claiming (maybe younger respondents) are artifacts of a wishful thinking? Is it possible that the benefits are somewhat real, but come with downsides? I'm not leading in any one direction, but I am curious if the experience is more objective or subjective.
Could be a couple things:
1. ASMR. Typewriters make a nice sound as you type. A lot of people like it. With regards to vinyl LPs, while growing up a friend of mine always remarked how much the static reminded him of a crackling fire. He felt like you were listening to music beside a fire.
2. I grew up in a time when these were simply the tools we had. I'd already learned how to be mindful about doing work - the tools forced us! I learned how to write and compose without the benefit of a computer. I learned photography at a time when I processed my own film and made my own prints in a darkroom. I know that experience has greatly affected how I approach digital photography. Younger people might simply be getting a thrill learning what I learned decades ago. Maybe they appreciate a completely different approach to achieving the same thing? With an entirely different workflow? That might give them new insights.
There are still aspects of the old that I like and prefer. For example, I still prefer books over screens. I still write notes on pen and paper and later transcribe them to my computer because I've learned I'll retain the information better if I actually physically write it down. When recording music, I prefer to use Audacity because it's like using the computer as a giant R2R and I get a more natural sound. I still shoot digital cameras in manual mode (or semi-automatic depending on the situation) because I like to control the different technical aspects of the shot. Stuff like that.
I'm not younger and listened to records and used a typewriter. I have a typewriter because it creates an environment that is not a computer. Unlike a phonograph, a typewriter is an entire ecosystem less commodity supplies (a phonograph is useless without the activity selecting and acquiring and storing records).
I don't recommend getting a typewriter. If someone wants to try one, they will do it. And if someone doesn't they won't. They are not for everyone and there is no moral distinction between those two groups.
I'm with you on the vinyl, and I was with you on the typewriter until a few years ago when I was looking through a museum and they had a typewriter that could be used by the guests. It was a little older than the typewriter I had to use as a kid before getting a computer, but not radically different.
Typing on it was at first nostalgic, but I quickly realized I was typing way more steadily and efficiently (far fewer mistakes) than I do on a modern keyboard. After continuing to use it I realized there really is something important in the physicality there. There's also a lot of value I think in the "distraction free" nature of the typewriter. It's not going to deluge me with notifications about email and slack messages I'm constantly receiving.
That said, I do think I'd get very frustrated if I had to type on it when tired or rushed as mistakes are far more costly on a typewriter than a modern computer. It's certainly not the panacea that nostalgia makes many of us think it will be, but I do think there's real benefit in it.