Gen Z Is Trading Smartphones for Flip Phones and Film Cameras

Young people are falling for a time they never lived through — and buying the gadgets to prove it. Roughly two-thirds of consumers from their teens to their late thirties are trading digital tech for analog, according to a September 2026 YPulse survey of 1,500 people that landed like a plot twist for the chronically-online generation. Flip phones are ringing again. Film cameras are selling out. And so-called "granny hobbies" like crocheting have become the new default way to unwind.

The word for the feeling is anemoia: nostalgia for an era you never personally experienced. But media psychologists say this is no longer just a vintage aesthetic. Dr. Don Grant, a media psychologist and national advisor on healthy device management at Newport Healthcare, told the New York Post that Gen Z has turned the throwback impulse into a full lifestyle — it started as nostalgia, he said, but it is sticking because it feels good, according to the Post's reporting on the study.

The flip phone comeback nobody scripted

Purchases of flip phones among buyers aged 18 to 24 rose 148 percent between 2021 and 2024, according to a peer-reviewed research report cited by the Post — a surge that predates the current conversation and suggests the trend has real staying power rather than being a passing meme. What changed? Gen Z realized it no longer needs one all-in-one supercomputer for everything. A phone that calls, texts, and — if you are lucky — runs Snake has become a feature, not a bug.

The same impulse is minting a brand-new product category: hardware whose entire job is keeping you off your smartphone. Brick, a $59 fob that locks your phone on a schedule to block doomscrolling, saw downloads climb nearly 600 percent year over year this January, according to Sensor Tower estimates cited by the Post. The device is a physical off switch you carry in your pocket — though for some, even blockers are not enough, which is why flip phones themselves have become the ultimate attention tool: there is nothing to doomscroll.

Autumn Parks, a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom in Indiana, told the Post she runs her Brick on a nightly schedule so the phone locks itself at 10 p.m. and stays that way until 8 a.m. Willpower alone, she said, is no match for apps designed to keep users scrolling, so the physical barrier forces a pause before unlocking — a moment to ask whether the scroll is even worth starting. Usually, she said, it is not.

Film cameras, Polaroids, and the texture economy

The analog wave is not only about communication. Film cameras are flying off shelves even though flagship smartphones now shoot photos that rival dedicated cameras. Fortune found that roughly 35 percent of film camera users are now under 30, the Post reported — young buyers happily paying $100 or more for point-and-shoots and Polaroids that make every frame feel like it counts.

Why? Boundaries. Infinite scroll, endless notifications, and algorithmic feeds are engineered to defeat self-control; the old gadgets are engineered for nearly the opposite. A film roll with a limited number of exposures forces intention. A flip phone with no social apps forces presence. As Parks put it, young people were handed these devices with little oversight growing up and are now redesigning the relationship on their own terms.

The pattern stretches beyond tech. Pinterest's 2026 trend data shows nearly one in four users worldwide engaging in more nostalgic activities — from collecting vintage items to reviving childhood hobbies — with young people rediscovering handwriting and pen pals, according to the platform's report. YPulse's polling lines up: beyond hardware, Gen Z is swapping endless scrolling for analog pastimes like photography and crocheting.

What the analog playbook means for your screen time

The reader takeaway is practical rather than preachy: the analog playbook is about friction, not purity. You do not need to ditch your smartphone to borrow the trick. Scheduled app blockers, grayscale mode, a charging spot outside the bedroom, or one screen-free evening a week all replicate the Brick effect at zero cost — though flip phones remain the nuclear option for the truly committed. The movement's core insight is that self-control was never the design target — the apps were built to beat it, so the winning move is changing the environment rather than the person.

There are honest caveats. Vintage film and developing are expensive, flip phones are impractical for banking, maps, and work logins, and documenting your analog lifestyle on TikTok is, as more than one critic has noted, its own kind of irony. And while the sales figures prove the hardware boom is real, intention is harder to measure than purchases — a film camera in a drawer is not a digital detox.

Still, the direction of travel is clear. Grant reframes the whole movement with a fragment that cuts through the nostalgia talk: this is not an anti-tech crusade, it is "an anti-overload movement," and analog is "regulation." The generation raised on infinite feeds is learning the oldest trick in design — sometimes the best feature is the off switch. For more on how young people are reshaping everyday life, see IRL Life, and for another Gen Z reality check, read A Record Share of Young Adults Living With Parents.