Everything old is new again as Gen Z embrace sewing, crafting and even CDs in a backlash against technology

When your grandmother knitted a winter jumper she probably wouldn’t have described what she was doing as Grandmacore. When your grandfather knocked together a new bookshelf in the back shed instead of paying someone to assemble one from IKEA, he would not have called it an “analog hobby”. And when the Gen Xs pressed play on the latest CD from Rage Against the Machine, the machine they had in mind was probably not a streaming service that exists in a cloud. But in 2026, these are the phrases being used to describe an uptick in interest in the kinds of hobbies and physical media that not too long ago were anything but exceptional. Whether it’s an AI backlash or simply a push back from being chronically online, across the world younger people - Gen Z and Millennials - are learning to sew, ditching dating apps, switching eReaders for a physical book, swapping music streaming services for CDs and are even toting around books of crosswords. In the US, arts and crafts company Michael’s reported searches for “analog hobbies” increased by 136 per cent in the second half of 2025. Searches for hot analog hobby “yarn knits” rose by 1200 percent last year. Closer to home, owner of West Perth art school House of Hobby Emilie Otto says business is booming. “People are bored with the scrolling and they’ve watched everything on Netflix,” she says. “I feel like since COVID there has been an analog hobby boom. “People just want to spend time doing something for themselves. Learning a new skill, doing something creative. But there’s also that big element of taking the time to switch off from the distractions of every day.” Otto bought House of Hobby in 2020 and has seen the business ride a wave of interest for what Gen Z have dubbed “grandmacore” or “analog hobbies”. Sewing, watercolour, cross stitch and pottery are some of the classes on offer. Ms Otto says she is finding more people coming through her doors are chasing time away from their phones as well as a desire to learn a tangible skill. “As that tech boom has really gone off, a lot of people have lost (these skills) because it was just easier and more efficient and in some ways cheaper to just go online and scroll and play games. And with all the things coming out of China clothes were cheaper and easier to buy, and pre-made meals came on the market. So there wasn’t a need for people to have those tangible hobbies,” she says. Otto’s observations are indicative of a growing movement that doesn’t exactly reject technology, but wants to wind back the clock to a time when it was not so all encompassing. Think less 1803 and more 2003. Part of this means embracing the kind of hobbies you don’t need a screen for. Ironically, much of the movement to get offline has been born online. On social media apps Instagram and TikTok, there are thousands of videos of people showing off the items in their “analog bags”. Yes, that is just a normal bag with things in it to pass the time when you’re stuck in a waiting room or on a train - places where these days people are likely to be doom-scrolling their phone. In the analog bags are things like crossword books, knitting supplies and magazines. Some people are simply changing the type of technology they are engaging with. The buzz word here is “intentional”. If you listen to music through a streaming service you might pick a starting tune or a genre and the algorithm will do the rest. But if you have to select physical media - a CD for example - you have to think a little harder about what you are listening to. Sales of vinyl records have been growing for years, but CDs are also enjoying a comeback. In the UK, CD sales are up 15 percent year on year, and last year UK retailer John Lewis reported a 74 per cent jump in sales of CD players. Surprisingly it’s not a trend being driven purely by nostalgia. Leading the charge back to physical media are Gen Z - people born between 1995 and 2012. “It’s a lot to do with ownership and things because it feels like every new thing that comes out it’s another subscription. And that’s a frustration,” 26-year old Perth Insurance Underwriter Chris Wilson-Smith says. Wilson-Smith was still in primary school when CDs were superseded by music streaming services, but he recently bought himself a cassette player and plans to build up a physical media collection consisting of tapes, CDs and DVDs. “There’s just something about the experience of making that decision to play a tape or a record. You put it on, and it’s only playing that one album. You’re not able to jump around,” Mr Wilson-Smith says. He says while he loves technology, he wants to be more intentional about how and what he uses. He has deleted TikTok, and instead of streaming movies online, he’s buying more DVDs and goes to the cinema as often as he can. “I really enjoy going to the movies, because it kind of forces you to regain some of that attention span,” Mr Wilson-Smith says. “It’s that choice to sit through and watch that movie without the distractions.” It’s a battle many younger people, the digital natives, are facing. Having never known a life without smartphones and social media, they are now beginning to realise the damage the devices have have done them. In the US, neuro-scientist Jared Cooney Horvath presented findings to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation last month that showed Gen Z is the first cohort to have less cognitive ability than the generation before them. In his report Dr Horvath was clear: It’s the screens. And especially the screens in classrooms, where Gen Z were told to prepare for a life online. “This is not a debate about rejecting technology,” Dr Horvath wrote. “It is a question of aligning educational tools with how human learning actually works. Evidence indicates that indiscriminate digital expansion has weakened learning environments rather than strengthened them.” For 24-year old Abby Gleadhill, doing analog hobbies in a digital world feels a little like evoking the punk spirit of the 1990s riot grrl. It was studying this movement that inspired her to establish Craftygrrrlz, a group for women to come together to make things, analog style. “It’s like a rebellion, moving away from consuming so much to being able to just create,” Gleadhill says of Craftygrrrlz. “It’s also really good for people’s mental health,” she said. Ms Gleadhill said she often has discussions with friends about their reliance on smart phones, but as much as they dislike the technology, the modern world has made it virtually impossible to function without it. “It’s something that comes up a lot,” Ms Gleadhill says of her and her friends reluctant reliance on smartphones. “especially the fact that we can’t live without them, not just because we use them so much, but everything relies on them. I use my phone for my job all the time, and anyone who wants to do anything in social media or expand their horizons that way, you have to have a phone and have to have a smartphone. Basically, you can’t even go down to a flip phone.” Ms Gleadhill is the general manager at Swan River Distillery, but she studied fine arts at university and she says Craftygrrrlz is a way to stay creative but also connect with like minded people. She says many young people are tired of their socialising being arranged through apps, and as people start to ditch dating apps and log off social media, there is a need for groups to meet up in real life. Gleadhill has organised several Craftygrrrlz meet ups (via, where else? Instagram, even the offline world needs some online link) usually in parks, where strangers meet up to scrapbook, sew, bead or knit - whatever they like - while swapping supplies and stories. “I’m meeting people that I would never have met before which is really nice,” she says. “It’s kind of a little bit of rebellion, of moving away from the capitalist machine that wants us to just work.”