53% of US adults are keen to spend less time on screens, a figure that rises to 69% among adults under 30. Little wonder when almost one third of under 30s spend more than nine hours a day looking at screens.
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It’s interesting how tuned in to our children’s screen time we are, but how little care and attention we pay our own device usage. If you’ve never given it much thought, open your phone’s digital wellbeing or screen time app and prepare for a rude awakening.
None of us likes to admit we have a problem, but how often do you reach for your smartphone to use it with a very clear intention and, 20 minutes later, find yourself scrolling the headlines, or deep down a social media rabbit hole, wondering what on earth it was you were supposed to be doing?
Surveys by YouGov in 2025 found 53% of US adults are keen to spend less time on screens, a figure that rises to 69% among adults under 30. Little wonder when almost one third (32%) of under 30s spend more than nine hours a day looking at screens. That figure drops as people get older, to less than a quarter (24%) among 30-to 44-year-olds, 16% among 45-to 64-year-olds, and 11% among seniors aged 65 and older.
And some are actively trying. More than a third (36%) of Americans say that, within the past year, they have intentionally tried to slash the amount of time they spend looking at screens. Not easy when there’s always one within arm’s reach.
Selective luddites know there’s no reward without effort
Smartphones are a multi-tool. They conveniently cater to our every need. What that means is taking a photo with a real camera, or leafing through a newspaper, or playing a record, or reading a printed book, are now choices.
If you carefully weigh up the analog and digital options available to you and consider which will improve your life, you might just be a selective luddite. Broadly speaking, luddites are those opposed to new technologies, while selective luddites embrace technology on their terms. They are careful curators.
More of us are rediscovering the appeal of doing things the harder (though usually more enjoyable) way. Last year, and for the first time this century, vinyl music sales surpassed $1 billion in a calendar year, according to a report by Recording Industry Association of America, while the Camera & Imaging Products Association reported a 30% rise in compact camera sales.
It points to a growing appreciation for experiences and activities that command our time and our intention. People are waking up to the fact there’s joy to be found in slowing things down and realising there’s little reward without effort.
People like Charlie Kirkham, a UK-based art curator and artist. She doesn’t consider herself anti-technology per se but does take issue with our human over-reliance on technology, the laziness it generates, and the blind faith people place in it.
She says: “It’s not that I’m anti-technology; it’s that I’m pro analytical thought. You remember that one friend who held onto their Nokia brick until work insisted they upgrade? Well, that’s me.”
In place of a phone or camera, she sketches memories with a pencil and a pack of watercolour postcards that she carries around. At work, Kirkham uses an antique sand hourglass which times an hour. “There’s something oddly magical about observing the physicality of time moving,” she says. When not working, she turns the ring tone on and leaves her smartphone in the corner of her kitchen where her landline used to be. Her daily screen time averages one hour.
Perhaps contrarily Kirkham believes being a selective luddite is actually the easier path. “It sounds hard muting the group invites and not being online 24/7, but is the alternative easier? In a time when so many of us are burned out, the ultimate self-care isn’t a bubble bath, it’s protecting our ability to focus.”
Use tech intentionally? You may already be a selective luddite
At a time when AI is pushing people to reassess their relationship with, and use of, technology, being a selective luddite may offer a more intentional way forward. And many are already practising it. In a 2025 survey of 2,000 US adults commissioned by Thriftbooks, half said they’d made a point to disconnect digitally and spend less time on screens for their own well-being.
A vast majority–84%–had already incorporated analog lifestyle choices in their day-to-day lives, such as writing in notebooks, reading printed books, scheduling on paper calendars, playing physical games including puzzles, and waking up to alarm clocks.
For workplace productivity, this kind of intentionality can work wonders.
Kirkham says being a selective luddite has helped her learn to focus. She describes discomfort and boredom as her teachers. “Blocking out deep thinking time, where the phone is silent, the emails are off, the kind where you might even feel bored, that’s when the magic happens,” she says.
“The pay off is better quality work. And it isn’t just work productivity that benefits, protecting your attention supports your working memory too.”