The latest must-have accessory is a “stop-scrolling bag” – a tote packed with analog activities like watercolors and crossword puzzles. We spend hours glued to our screens. “Analog bags,” as they’re also called, are one way millennials and Gen Zers are reclaiming that time. “I basically just put everything I could grab for instead of my phone into a bag,” including knitting, a scrapbook and a Polaroid camera, says Sierra Campbell, the content creator behind the trend.
The 31-year-old keeps one bag at home in Northern California, carrying it from room to room, and another in her car. The trend has quickly spread on social media, part of a bigger shift to unplug. Roughly 1,600 TikTok posts were tagged #AnalogLife during the first nine months of 2025 – up over 330% from the same period last year, according to TikTok data shared with Axios.
“It speaks to an incredible desperation and desire for experiences that return our attention to us, that fight brain-rotting, that are tactile … that involve creating over scrolling,” says Beth McGroarty, vice president of research at the Global Wellness Institute.
this seems to just be subbing one obsession for another. if you have to create a bugout bag because you have a scroll addiction, I think that maybe warrants a better look at properly managing your own behavior.
just put the damn thing down and read a book, or paint something. you don’t need to declare war on smart phones. or even eliminate them from your life. just take some responsibility for your device use.
i mean strong emotions lead to collective change. telling a person they should Not express all this emotion and Not talk about it like they do just isolates the person into not feeling it’s a big trend. also increases self-shaming. then it never happens for those who obviously have been unsuccsessful so far. /info
did you mean this comment to go to a different thread? cause my comment has nothing to do with anything you’ve said.
Yea this is an issue with people’s behavior and habits. Not the device.