Young people are turning to old-school hobbies and offline activities as a way to spend less time on their phones and reconnect with hands-on creativity, the Associated Press reported in a story published March 9, 2026.
The report highlighted how the trend includes activities that are sometimes labeled online as “grandma hobbies,” including knitting, gardening and needlepoint. It also said other tactile pursuits—such as pottery, origami and even blacksmithing—have gained traction online with Gen-Z and millennials.
Los Angeles-based needlepoint enthusiast Emma MacTaggart told the AP she began paying attention to how little screen-free time she had. By age 23, she said her free time was rare and “seldom screen-free,” and she described working long hours in investment banking before turning to her phone after work.
Looking for a substitute, MacTaggart said she and her roommates decided to hunt for a hobby to replace that habit. She said they became “hooked” on needlepoint and that it was “a really therapeutic way to kind of distract yourself from either work or stress, but also just do something with your hands instead of doomscrolling.” She added, “We became completely obsessed.”
The AP described the analog movement as somewhat ironic in its popularity, saying the shift has been galvanized by its trendiness on social media. MacTaggart, now 26, founded the needlepoint business What’s the Stitch and runs social media profiles under the same name.
She said she enjoys giving the craft a younger spin, telling the AP, “It is such a historically buttoned up craft, so it’s fun to put a young spin on it.” The report said her needlepoint products include cheeky humor and sometimes profanity.
The AP also quoted psychology professor Jaime Kurtz, whose research focuses on happiness. Kurtz said, “Hobbies are really important,” and added that carving out “little bits of time” for them is “a really wise use of time.” He said the activities can help reduce anxiety and stress and can provide a sense of accomplishment because they require focus.
Another example in the report came from Clara Sherman, who co-founded the company So Bam Fun to “reinvigorate” the game of mahjong for younger players. Sherman said that when she plays with friends, she can reach a “zen state,” and she said the experience lets her “shut off the rest of the world.”
Not everyone, the AP reported, is trying to escape technology altogether. Isaiah Scott, a birdwatcher, artist and content creator, said the app eBird plays a key role in his birding by letting birders log and track observations and also contribute to scientific research and conservation.
Scott said it is easy to describe his generation as “glued to their phones,” but he argued that access to technology can “opens so many doors to get involved in hobbies that may have been forgotten about or (are) just difficult to get into otherwise.” Scott, based in Savannah, Georgia, compared birdwatching to Pokémon games he grew up playing, saying: “It feels like a video game, but in real life.”
Beyond his personal hobby, the report said Scott founded the nonprofit Rookery and Roots Conservancy and recently purchased a 16-acre parcel of land in Rincon, Georgia, to safeguard wildlife habitats, with the purchase made possible in part because of the platform he built online. The AP also said Scott has seen about 800 different species.
The AP reported that online exposure can help analog hobbyists build businesses and communities. Anna Weare, a blacksmith and farrier, is known online as AnvilAnna, and the report said she posts videos on TikTok and other platforms that have given her international reach. The AP said the waitlist to snag her coveted one-piece spurs is about a year long.
Weare told the AP she thinks some of the appeal of blacksmithing and other centuries-old practices could be driven by fatigue with hyper-digitalized life and poorly made products. She said people are realizing that factory-made, mass-produced items “wear out so quickly,” and she added, “people want longevity, and this craft has been around for so long for a reason.”
The report also described how communities form around analog crafts. Kristie Landing created Verse & Sip, a platform and collective for poets and poetry lovers, and she posts videos online showing letter writing, letter locking, wax seals and origami. Landing told the AP she tries to create “slower moments” on platforms that she said focus on “really quick, short attention span kind of videos,” and she said, “These kind of stop you in the scroll.”
The AP reported that Landing also began a pen pal matching service and created the Verse & Sip Mail Club, sending out an original poem and an accompanying tea monthly to a couple of hundred people across the globe.
For her part, MacTaggart said she welcomes the label “grandma hobbies.” The AP quoted her saying she jokes with friends that she has been a grandma her whole life, adding that it is “only fitting that this is now my career.”
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