\n More people are using crafting as a mental health break to get away from doomscrolling, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic<\/a>, Shively said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI do think it\u2019s this really big cultural shift happening right now,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n \n Spurred on by the trend, I wanted to try it for myself. For 48 hours, I lived like it was the \u201890s.\n <\/p>\n \n Logging off for just two days sounds easy. For most, it probably is. For me, it meant ditching my three iPhones, one MacBook, two even bigger desktop monitors, a Kindle, an Alexa \u2014 and the primal Gen-Z urge to swipe between all of them.\n <\/p>\n \n Before embarking on my journey, I spoke to regular analog-ers to get some inspiration. If you want to reach Shaughnessy Barker, a 25-year-old in Penticton, British Columbia, you\u2019ll have to ring her landline.\n <\/p>\n \n Like many preteens in the 2010s, Barker\u2019s introduction to the internet was through \u201cstan Twitter\u201d for British boy band One Direction. But she says that as she\u2019s gotten older, \u201ceverything is meant for profit (on the internet) and nothing is meant to just be for enjoyment anymore.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The transition to an analog lifestyle wasn\u2019t difficult for Barker, who describes herself as an \u201cAI hater to my core.\u201d She grew up listening to the radio and vinyl records<\/a>, and she has an extensive collection of cassettes, DVDs, VHS and records. She hosts tech-free craft nights and wine nights, writes notes, and sets limits on her computer time.\n <\/p>\n \n The biggest jump came when Barker bought an adapter to use a landline at home and a \u201cdumb phone<\/a>\u201d app when she\u2019s out.\n <\/p>\n \n If you want to get a hold of me, Barker told her friends, call me or write me a letter.\n <\/p>\n \n But even for Barker, it\u2019s become increasingly difficult to go completely offline. For example, the only way she can do outreach for her vintage shop or her \u201csnail mail club<\/a>\u201d is the internet.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m a walking oxymoron being like, \u2018I want to get off my phone and I\u2019m going to make TikToks about it,\u2019\u201d Barker said.\n <\/p>\n \n Analogers are tired of doomscrolling<\/a> and AI slop<\/a>, or just frustrated that ChatGPT and other generative AI services are doing the thinking and creating for us<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAI slop is quite fatiguing both in the actual action of viewing the content and the fact that it\u2019s so repetitive, so unoriginal,\u201d Avriel Epps, an AI researcher and assistant professor at the University of California Riverside, said.\n <\/p>\n \n It doesn\u2019t mean swearing off all technology, and analog participants don\u2019t say they\u2019re anti-technology. Some people have simply picked up parts of the lifestyle: For example, replace Spotify and the AI-powered shuffle with an iPod. Instead of snapping a million photos in the same pose (guilty), slow down and take a film photo you can hold in your hand. Even small acts like buying a physical alarm clock can feel liberating.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cGoing analog is not necessarily about cutting myself off from the information on the internet, but it\u2019s more so about cutting the internet off from the information about me,\u201d Epps said. She recently got off the Google suite and does screen-free Sundays.\n <\/p>\n \n The morning was easy enough on my first day offline. I woke up naturally with the sun, cosplaying a lifestyle influencer: I journaled, opened up an old copy of \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d and got ready in half the time I usually do. I didn\u2019t have time to find an old iPod or VHS player, so I depended on crafting and reading to get through the days.\n <\/p>\n \n My biggest issue was the feeling that I was putting on a performance.\n <\/p>\n \n I was writing about this for a digital media publication and speaking to people I found on social media. I also chose the easiest replacements for digital life; I knew writing out my grocery lists would be way easier than choosing to never FaceTime my family again.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, on my tech-free walk into the office, I noticed how many other people were screen-free. Usually, I would sidestep the tourists gawking at skyscrapers, but this time I followed their gaze. On this clear day, the Empire State Building truly did look glorious.\n <\/p>\n \n When I attended a weekly knitting circle at a Brooklyn library during my two-day challenge, women of all ages were swapping stitch tips and color ideas \u2014 screen-free. In the warm room of roughly 20 people, everyone remarked how they used their knitting time as a way to decompress.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cKnitting gives you something to do with your hands so you\u2019re not on your phone,\u201d Tanya Nguyen, a regular knitter at the event, said.\n <\/p>\n \n My own day freed up so many minutes to finally get through \u201cWuthering Heights,\u201d send my 8-year-old cousin a postcard and perhaps, after about a dozen more knitting lessons, make that scarf. I felt like I accomplished something outside of work and a bright blue screen.\n <\/p>\n \n Like so many people in my generation, I just needed a TikTok trend to tell me to do it.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 With our homes and lives swarming with AI-powered devices, assistants and chatbots, a backlash is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-417384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"For](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/img-0048-20260117224644468.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Barker's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image5-20260117223610081.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Barker's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image3-20260117223431031.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"CNN's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/img-0043-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"CNN's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/img-0047-20260117225123736.jpg\")
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