Gen Z Quitting Social Media: Two-Thirds Eye Logging Off

The generation that grew up with phones in their hands is trying to put them down. Call it the Gen Z quitting social media era.

According to a new national report, nearly three in four American adults (73%) say spending in-person time with friends and family has become more important to them over the last year, while a majority (55%) have seriously considered quitting social media, and the Gen Z quitting social media trend is the sharpest edge of that shift. The Gen Z quitting social media findings come from Murmuration's Life in the Digital Age report, published September 24, 2026, based on a survey of 7,449 U.S. adults conducted from July 29 to August 10, 2026, with support from the Walton Family Foundation. Results were weighted by age, race, gender, education, and party identification to reflect the U.S. adult population, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4% at the 95% confidence level.

The generation raised online wants out

The Gen Z quitting social media wave is most dramatic among adults ages 18 to 30 — the first generation to grow up fully online. Nearly two-thirds (64%) say they have seriously considered quitting social media, more than any other generation, and 44% have actually deleted a social media app from their phone. The report includes a heavy oversample of nearly thirty-nine hundred Gen Z adults, making the young-adult findings some of the most detailed in the survey. Sarah Stamper, Murmuration's Chief Research Officer, said in a statement that "as more of life moves online — from doctor's appointments to parking meters — people are reaching for more life outside their screens," adding that 81% of adults have already taken steps to reduce their screen time. The Gen Z quitting social media data is the headline, but the rest of the report explains the why.

An analog revival is underway

The numbers point to a broad turn toward the tangible. Majorities of adults say spending time outdoors (59%) and cooking, gardening, or making things by hand (54%) have grown in importance over the last year. Nearly four in ten (38%) are prioritizing reading physical books, newspapers, and magazines.

Young adults lead that charge, reporting offline habits at the highest rates of any age group. The Gen Z quitting social media trend keeps showing up in what young adults do offline: like visiting local businesses, libraries, and farmers' markets (40%), attending community events (36%), volunteering (30%), and writing by hand (29%) have become more important to them. Libraries, farmers' markets, and community bulletin boards are doing what feeds used to do: giving young people a reason to leave the house on a Saturday. The analog urge is everywhere — young adults are even trading smartphones for flip phones (read more on the flip-phone revival).

Digital life is wearing people down

The report suggests exhaustion is driving the retreat. Three-quarters (74%) believe social media encourages people to perform or curate a version of themselves rather than be authentic, and a majority (52%) say they feel more like their authentic selves offline. Nearly two-thirds of adults say everyday life requires more mental effort than it should at least a few times a week, with 37% saying the weight lands on them every single day. When asked what keeps them coming back to the platforms anyway, nearly half (46%) name habit or boredom — which tells you the Gen Z quitting social media story is driven as much by exhaustion as by principle.

Trust is eroding too: half (50%) say finding trustworthy information has become harder over the last few years, and 51% say they are less confident than they were in 2024 in their ability to tell what online information is real. The same generation still talks plenty, though — Gen Z makes more small talk than any other generation (the full breakdown).

There is one problem: nowhere to go

Wanting to log off is easy. Finding somewhere to go is harder. More than six in ten Gen Z adults (61%) say affordable places to spend time are harder to find than they used to be, along with places to meet people casually (43%) and screen-free gathering spaces (42%).

The report found that Gen Z is the generation most likely to say online interactions lead to meaningful real-world relationships — the most digitally fluent Americans extract the most real-world value from the internet and are also the most deliberate about stepping away. That is the Gen Z quitting social media trend in a sentence: maximum value from being online, maximum intention about going offline. When asked what a healthy relationship with technology looks like, only 5% of adults describe little or no technology at all. Nobody is asking to go back to 1995. They just want the feed to stop being the only place to be.

Read the Murmuration Life in the Digital Age report announcement via Newsfile