For a generation that grew up with a phone in hand, spending a few hours away from a screen almost feels like an act of rebellion. While social media, short-form videos, and notifications are constantly competing for our attention, Gen Z (myself included) is going in the opposite direction – the analog world: going back to hobbies that don’t need Wi-Fi, a battery, or an app to happen.
Old digital cameras, film photography, physical books, journals, letters, vinyl records, painting, crochet, and even the simple habit of printing photos have all made their way back into the routines of many young people. What once might have seemed outdated now has a vintage feel and, more importantly, a sense of novelty.
It’s interesting to think that a generation known for being constantly connected is so interested in things that can’t be shared immediately.
Less Screen, More Experience
Part of this movement has to do with the exhaustion caused by spending so much time online. After hours of consuming content that disappears within seconds, slower activities end up becoming a way to slow down.
Reading a physical book, for example, doesn’t work the same way as scrolling through a feed. There isn’t a new notification waiting on the next page or a suggested video interrupting the experience. The same thing happens with film photography. You take the picture without knowing exactly how it turned out, and you have to wait to see the result.
That waiting, which could be seen as a disadvantage in the age of instant photography, is exactly what makes it so charming.
Film Photography Became a Desire
Perhaps one of the biggest symbols of this comeback is the growing popularity of old digital cameras and film cameras among young people.
Blown-out flash, little imperfections, grain, and colors that look different from those produced by today’s smartphones have started showing up more and more on social media. The irony is that many of these images, created outside the digital world, end up right back online, whether in an Instagram post or a TikTok photo dump.
Even so, there is an important difference. Photography stops being just a tool for documenting everything and becomes an experience.
With a phone, we can take dozens of pictures of the same moment and choose the best one later. With a roll of 24 or 36 exposures, every click has to be considered. You can’t check the picture right away, and you can’t delete it just because someone blinked.
And maybe that is exactly what makes film photography so interesting to a generation used to having control over everything.
The Charm of Making Things With Your Own Hands
This movement isn’t limited to photography. Hands-on hobbies have also found their place. Crochet, knitting, painting, drawing, scrapbooking, ceramics, and even making jewelry are increasingly becoming leisure options. Besides keeping our hands busy, they also offer something the internet can’t always provide: the feeling of creating something from scratch.
There is also an aesthetic component. Decorated notebooks, typewriters, cassette tapes, vinyl records, and old cameras fit perfectly with the nostalgic aesthetic that currently dominates a big part of youth culture.
Nostalgia for a Time We Never Lived
There is another interesting aspect to this movement: much of Gen Z is bringing back objects and habits from decades they never actually lived through.
It’s common to find young people interested in cameras from the 2000s, CDs, DVDs, old phones, and other technologies that were part of previous generations’ childhoods. For those who grew up in a world dominated by smartphones, these objects seem different precisely because they don’t offer the same endless number of possibilities.
An old camera is basically there to take pictures. A CD is there to play music. A journal is there to write in.
That simplicity becomes part of the experience.
It’s Not Exactly About Disconnecting Completely
Gen Z isn’t abandoning technology. Quite the opposite. This is a generation that grew up connected and uses the internet for practically everything. What seems to be happening is an attempt to establish a different relationship with it.
And this is where we almost find a contradiction. The hobbies are offline, but the post is always guaranteed. It feels like we have started living analog experiences while still having that thought in the back of our minds that there should be something to show the world.
Our generation constantly lives in a performance directed toward algorithms. The hype right now is analog, but how many Instagram or TikTok accounts do we see romanticizing offline life?
Still, there is something almost magical about disconnecting (even if only through the illusion of it). We are often so overwhelmed by information that the simple act of sitting down and smelling the pages of a physical book can already make a difference.
In the end, maybe the return of analog isn’t an attempt to go back to the past, but to find a pause in the present.
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The article above was edited by Júlia Darú.
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