The 2025 trend of swapping screens for analog bags has taken the internet by storm. Emily Karst, 32, keeps a journal, watercolor supplies, a needlepoint kit, a reading light, and a murder-mystery puzzle book in her car, never packing her phone.
Analog Bags
Emily Karst calls her collection her “analog bag.” She says, “Even when I’m home and my analog bag is over on the hook, when I’m like, ‘OK, what do I want to do?’ that neural pathway that used to say, ‘Well, grab your phone,’ is starting to fire with the urge to maybe do needlepoint.” Her bag reflects a broader 2025 shift toward minimizing screen time by choosing hobby supplies over electronic devices.
Apps & Devices
The popularity of analog bags coincides with tech products aimed at curbing doomscrolling. YouTuber Hank Green’s Focus Friend app, which topped the Apple App Store charts earlier this year, gives users a little bean that knits more items the longer the user keeps away from certain blocked apps. A small app-blocking device called the Brick also gained buzz; it locks users out of distracting apps and websites until they touch their phones to the Brick to deactivate the locks.
Physical Phone Docks
Maddie DeVico, a small-business owner in Colorado, says, “I think we’re all craving to just get back into community and real life, like real, tangible relationships. Everyone’s so online now that it’s hurting my soul.” To combat her own social media addiction, DeVico molded a clay dock that turns her cellphone into a landline when she has no pressing need for it. She shares the idea on TikTok, sparking a wave of copycat phone docks. Now she hangs her phone in the clay dock every night, trying phone-free mornings, phone-free dinners, and a few phone-free zones in her home.
Crafting & Community
Shun Hawkins, 31, lives in Tennessee and loves junk journaling. In her analog bag she packs stickers, washi tape, and fashion magazine clippings to collage, along with a doodle book and a Nickelodeon-themed coloring book with colored pencils and felt-tip pens. She says, “It’s reawakened something in me that I feel like I lost a long time ago. I didn’t even go to school for something that I’m passionate about. And now, being 31, being at home and being able to do things like junk journaling and doodling again, that’s reigniting this passion for me – even wanting to go back to school just to take on fashion.” Hawkins notes that more crafting has meant less doomscrolling, as she reorganizes trinkets instead of reaching for her phone.
Events & Parties
The urge to go analog has spilled into nightlife. Hush Harbor, a cocktail bar in Washington, D.C., prohibits cellphones to encourage people to be present and connect with their communities. New York-based DJ Christa Eduafo, who goes by DJ Chvmeleon, launched monthly phone-free parties in June, aiming to revive a culture where people can dance without fear of being photographed or recorded. She says, “There’s more of an interest in capturing a moment to post later than experiencing a moment in real time, and that’s impacting the real-time experience.” She adds, “So it’s almost like everyone’s going to an event or to a bar because maybe they saw it on TikTok and they saw that there might be a moment they could capture and post themselves. But if there’s a room full of people waiting for something to capture, then there’s nothing to capture.”
Tech founder Cat Goetze, who goes by CatGPT online, built a Bluetooth-compatible landline phone and surpassed $120,000 in sales within the first three days of its July launch. He also hosted a “no-phone party” in Los Angeles this fall that drew more than 700 people. Goetze explains, “There’s a lot of people who say: ‘Just get a flip phone. Take this supercomputer, chuck it into the ocean and go back to the ’90s and just get a dumb phone again.'” He counters, “What I realized is that the thing that actually works is balance, and balance doesn’t mean getting rid of your smartphone.” He continues, “It’s about putting external factors in place that make your smartphone less easily accessible at all times.” Goetze says the concept forced people to interact with one another without being able to pull out their phones as a social crutch, noting that it made the experience “one of the most present events that I have attended in a really long time.” He plans a small tour of no-phone parties elsewhere next year.
Key Takeaways
- Analog bags and physical phone docks are popular ways to reduce screen time.
- Apps like Focus Friend and devices like the Brick help users block distracting content.
- Crafting, junk journaling, and phone-free events foster real-life connections and community.
The 2025 digital detox movement blends social media documentation with tangible hobbies, showing that people are actively seeking balance between online and offline worlds.
