For makers and artists, the current cultural shift represents a quiet rebellion against the algorithms designed to monopolise your focus. The era of “fast tech,” where devices fight to keep you glued to a screen, is giving way to a “slowtech” movement that prioritises intention over immediacy. This isn’t just about nostalgia; it is a strategic reclamation of attention spans in an age of digital fatigue.
The irony of the iPod Shuffle revival
When Tony Fadell stepped into New York City’s 28th Street Subway Station recently, he expected a standard commute. Instead, he encountered a five-by-four-foot poster promoting the iPod Shuffle, a device he helped design over two decades ago. The ad promised “zero screen time,” a tagline that now feels prophetic.
“The first thing was, I thought, ‘Wait a second, did somebody not change the ad?'” Fadell told TechCrunch. “For somebody like me who knows that thing intimately, it’s like seeing your kid’s picture.”
Surrounded by commuters wearing wireless Bluetooth headphones, streaming music from libraries containing over 100 million songs, the scene highlights how far we have drifted from Steve Jobs’ original vision of “one thousand songs in your pocket.” The postage-stamp-sized iPod Shuffle, with its limited controls and reliance on shuffle playback, seems archaic. Yet, it has found a new audience.
Joy Howard, CMO of Back Market, an online marketplace for refurbished tech, was responsible for the subway advertisement. She notes that the demand for such obsolete technology is genuine. “People are very oversaturated and overstimulated, and they really want to have a more mindful approach to what they’re doing with their tech,” Howard said. “There’s this fatigue that we have with the need to optimize every single aspect of our life.”
Friction as a feature
The appeal of slowtech lies in its refusal to be seamless. For younger generations who have never known a world without constant connectivity, there is a distinct magic in wired headphones, retro gaming consoles, and digital point-and-shoot cameras. These tools offer experiences that do not attempt to hijack attention.
Unlike modern streaming apps, old-school cameras cannot upload photos to social media stories instantly, and retro games do not spam users with gambling advertisements. That is the core philosophy Howard describes: “The ‘fast tech’ up until now has been all about eliminating friction… [Now], people are seeing friction as a way to create boundaries for themselves.”
Howard finds it remarkable that people now view friction as a beneficial feature rather than a flaw. “It’s so stunning to me that now people are wanting to bring friction back into their lives, and see that as a feature, rather than a flaw.”
The evolution of digital detox
The roots of this movement stretch back further than the current trend. Around the time Fadell pitched the iPod to Steve Jobs, Austin Murray founded JAMDAT, one of the first mobile gaming companies. The firm went public and was later sold to Electronic Arts for $680 million.
“When we were pitching our company back in 2000, 2001, people were laughing at us, saying, ‘Why would anyone play games on their cell phone?'” Murray recalled.
Decades later, Murray is pitching investors on MOQA, an app designed to reduce screen time, effectively counteracting the industry he helped build. “It’s watching what happened to my kids and the people around me that hurts my soul the most,” he said. “When everyone is doing the same thing – meaning everyone, the average screen time is like five hours probably on a phone every day – it’s not a willpower problem. It’s a product design problem.”
This desire to disconnect is widespread. Approximately 53% of American adults express a wish to reduce their screen time. Writer Calvin Kasulke, whose novel *Several People Are Typing* depicts workers trapped inside a Slack workspace, pays for Opal and Freedom apps to limit his usage.
“I don’t need to limit my time on iMessage – that’s people who I really know! But I certainly don’t want to be wasting my time doomscrolling,” Kasulke explained. He admitted the embarrassment of using two different apps to manage his own habits, noting, “I don’t think screens are inherently bad. I just think the way I was using [my phone] was worse and dumb, and now it’s a little bit less dumb.”
Hardware shifts and the limits of detox
Some users have taken the plunge entirely, abandoning iPhones for flip phones, e-ink devices running Android, or minimalist hardware like the Light Phone. Kaiwei Tang, co-founder of Light, reports that customers feel significantly more free after switching.
“Our customers for the last ten years are telling us how they feel more free after switching to the Light Phone,” Tang said. “It’s getting more and more attention, especially among young people. We have quite a lot of the community using Light Phone as 20 to 35-year-olds, which surprised us.”
Murray is less optimistic about the viability of “dumb phones” as a long-term solution. “There’s certainly a movement of people who are just kind of anti-tech and ‘get it out of our lives,'” he noted. “That’s really hard though, because then you realize you can’t do things that are now assuming you have a smartphone, like banking, or going into a hotel, or [using] credit cards.”
Kasulke expressed a similar sentiment, stating he would “f–ing donate plasma to be able to afford” an e-ink iPhone if Apple ever produced one. However, without that option, he remains interested in moderation rather than total abandonment.
“I’m not like a, ‘I wish I could throw this thing in the toilet and go live in the woods’ kind of guy,” Kasulke said. “My phone has some utility for my personal and professional life, but it also lives in your pocket, and it is very, very easy, and in fact, designed in some ways to be addictive and to mindlessly waste time on it.”
AI and the new tools for control
Screen time is not universally negative; we accumulate it through video calls, messaging friends, reading news, and maintaining streaks on apps like Duolingo. However, as Fadell noted, technology often yanks us out of the present moment.
“It’s clear people want the convenience of digital, but they don’t want the annoyance of being always connected,” Fadell said. “I’ve always been like, ‘We need less screens, not more of them.’ So to have an Apple Watch with everything, like, no, no, no – I don’t want more, I want less.”
Market data supports this shift. American spending on fitness trackers grew 88% year-over-year, according to Circana. Devices like the Oura ring and Whoop wristband drive these sales precisely because they lack screens, forcing users to engage with data via a smartphone.
For those seeking a middle ground, tools like Mark, an AI bookmark priced at $159, offer a novel approach. It helps users avoid pulling out their phone to take notes while reading. Mark founder Eason Tang brands it as an analog tool culturally integrated with design and literature.
“The way we try to brand it now is this sort of analog tool, very culturally integrated with design, film, books, and literature,” Tang said. While the concept of using AI to mediate phone usage sounds paradoxical, it addresses a real pain point: the interruption of reading flow by notifications.
Howard emphasises that the slowtech movement is about people pushing back against digital fatigue and overwhelm. “I think what the ‘slowtech’ movement is about is people pushing back against the constant digital fatigue, distraction, overwhelm, so if you can use AI to do that, to kind of protect yourself… That’s what people want: more control.”
The hardware lifecycle problem
Disillusionment with big tech extends beyond screen time. Consumers are frustrated by companies that brick perfectly functional hardware to force upgrades. Back Market addresses this by refurbishing discontinued laptops and installing ChromeOS Flex, effectively turning obsolete machines into functioning Chromebooks.
“One of our developers started finding a way to hack things that had their OS sunsetted to bring it new life. And so one of the first things he hacked was a rice cooker,” Howard said. “His rice cooker didn’t have support anymore! This is actually a really cool use of AI – like, vibe coding your own app to keep your hardware alive longer.”
While the debate over AI’s role in slowtech continues, the underlying issue remains our dependency on an ecosystem controlled by industry whims. In a reality where we rely on smartphones for basic tasks like cooking, the desire to disconnect and regain control is understandable.
“People just really want to take back control of their time, their lives, their attention,” Howard concluded. “They’re down for whatever helps them do that.”
Key takeaways
- The “slowtech” movement represents a shift from eliminating friction to embracing it as a mechanism for creating personal boundaries and reducing digital fatigue.
- Approximately 53% of American adults wish to reduce their screen time, driving demand for tools like AI bookmarks and hardware that limit connectivity.
- Consumers are increasingly frustrated by planned obsolescence, leading to a resurgence of interest in refurbishing old hardware and using AI to extend device lifespans.
- For creators and users alike, the priority is no longer seamless integration but regaining control over attention and reclaiming the present moment.
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