When Tony Fadell entered New York City\u2019s 28th Street Subway Station, he did not expect to come face-to-face with an advertisement<\/a> for a product he designed over 20 years ago. But there it was: a five-by-four-foot poster promoting the iPod Shuffle, luring passersby with the promise of \u201cZero screen time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe first thing was, I thought, \u2018Wait a second, did somebody not change the ad?\u2019\u201d Fadell, known as the father of the iPod, told TechCrunch. \u201cFor somebody like me who knows that thing intimately, it\u2019s like seeing your kid\u2019s picture.\u201d<\/p>\n As Fadell stood in the train station, he was surrounded by people wearing wireless Bluetooth headphones to stream music on their phones, effortlessly accessing music libraries with over 100 million songs. This technology that we take for granted makes Steve Jobs\u2019 early iPod tagline \u2014 \u201cone thousand songs in your pocket\u201d<\/a> \u2014 sound antiquated.<\/p>\n The postage-stamp-sized iPod Shuffle, which relied heavily on shuffle playback and offered little control compared to today\u2019s streaming apps, should not appeal to a modern audience. But we have become so entrenched in technology that our various devices, apps, and algorithms mediate our every experience, from grocery shopping to dating. We\u2019ve built smartphones that can do almost anything, but we\u2019ve also created a constant connectedness that has become more exhausting than enriching.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are very oversaturated and overstimulated, and they really want to have a more mindful approach to what they\u2019re doing with their tech,\u201d Joy Howard, CMO of Back Market<\/a>, an online marketplace for refurbished tech, told TechCrunch. \u201cThere\u2019s this fatigue that we have with the need to optimize every single aspect of our life.\u201d<\/p>\n Howard and her team were responsible for the iPod Shuffle ad that Fadell was so shocked to encounter. But Howard says that demand is growing for this supposedly obsolete tech \u2014 if these devices weren\u2019t driving sales, the company wouldn\u2019t have shelled out for a premium ad placement in a hectic New York City subway station.<\/p>\n For younger generations who have never known a world without social media and smartphones, there\u2019s a certain magic to wired headphones, retro gaming consoles, CDs, and digital point-and-shoot cameras. They crave experiences that aren\u2019t trying to monopolize their attention. Old-school cameras can\u2019t upload photos to your Instagram story, retro games don\u2019t spam you with gambling ads, and iPods can\u2019t automatically play music that you\u2019re algorithmically destined to enjoy. That\u2019s the whole point of this movement, which Howard calls \u201cslowtech.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2018fast tech\u2019 up until now has been all about eliminating friction\u2026 [Now], people are seeing friction as a way to create boundaries for themselves,\u201d Howard said. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Around the same time that Fadell first pitched the iPod to Steve Jobs, Austin Murray<\/a> founded JAMDAT, one of the first mobile gaming companies<\/a>, which quickly went public and was sold to Electronic Arts for $680 million.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were pitching our company back in 2000, 2001, people were laughing at us, saying, \u2018Why would anyone play games on their cell phone?\u2019\u201d Murray told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Now, investors are just as incredulous when he pitches them on his screen-time reduction app<\/a>, MOQA, which he is building to counteract the very phenomenon he helped create.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s watching what happened to my kids and the people around me that hurts my soul the most,\u201d Murray said. \u201cWhen everyone is doing the same thing \u2014 meaning everyone, the average screen time is like five hours probably on a phone every day \u2014 it\u2019s not a willpower problem. It\u2019s a product design problem.\u201d<\/p>\n This desire to cut back on the time we spend using our phones, computers, and TVs has become ubiquitous \u2014 about 53%<\/a> of American adults say they want to reduce their screen time.<\/p>\n \u201cAt a certain point, I realized that willpower was insufficient to not waste time on my phone,\u201d said writer Calvin Kasulke<\/a>, whose novel \u201cSeveral People Are Typing\u201d imagines workers trapped inside a Slack workspace. He now pays for Opal<\/a> and Freedom<\/a>, two apps designed to limit his screen time and social media use. \u201cI don\u2019t need to limit my time on iMessage \u2014 that\u2019s people who I really know! But I certainly don\u2019t want to be wasting my time doomscrolling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be very clear\u2026 I don\u2019t feel smug about this. It\u2019s embarrassing to have two different apps to limit how I use this,\u201d Kasulke said. \u201cI don\u2019t think screens are inherently bad. I just think the way I was using [my phone] was worse and dumb, and now it\u2019s a little bit less dumb.\u201d<\/p>\n Others have given up their iPhones altogether, opting instead for flip phones, e-ink devices<\/a> that run Android software, or minimalist touch-screen hardware like the Light Phone<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOur customers for the last 10 years are telling us how they feel more free after switching to the Light Phone,\u201d Light co-founder Kaiwei Tang told TechCrunch. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Murray isn\u2019t as optimistic about the future of \u201cdumb phones,\u201d though.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s certainly a movement of people who are just kind of anti-tech and \u2018get it out of our lives,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s really hard though, because then you realize you can\u2019t do things that are now assuming you have a smartphone, like banking, or going into a hotel, or [using] credit cards.\u201d<\/p>\n Kasulke said if Apple ever made an e-ink iPhone, he would \u201cf\u2013ing donate plasma to be able to afford it.\u201d But that\u2019s unlikely, so he\u2019s not particularly interested in downgrading his phone.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not like a, \u2018I wish I could throw this thing in the toilet and go live in the woods\u2019 kind of guy,\u201d Kasulke said. \u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Screen time isn\u2019t universally bad. We\u2019re accumulating screen time when we video chat with our family, text our friends, read news articles, maintain our Duolingo streaks, or play Wordle. But for as much as tech brings us closer to one another, it also yanks us out of the present moment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear people want the convenience of digital, but they don\u2019t want the annoyance of being always connected,\u201d Fadell said. \u201cI\u2019ve always been like, \u2018We need less screens, not more of them.\u2019 So to have an Apple Watch with everything, like, no, no, no \u2014 I don\u2019t want more, I want less.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not surprising that Fadell\u2019s preferences are a bellwether for the market \u2014 he\u2019s a veteran product designer, after all. American spending on fitness trackers grew 88%<\/a> year-over-year, according to market research firm Circana, which credits screenless wearables like the Oura ring and Whoop wristband as key sales drivers. Even though these devices don\u2019t have screens, you have to use your smartphone to see your data, which would make it even harder for Oura and Whoop users to try out something like the Light Phone.<\/p>\n But most consumers aren\u2019t looking to make such an extreme change as pivoting to a flip phone \u2014 instead, some are embracing even more sophisticated hardware that relies on their smartphone, but cuts down their overall screen time.<\/p>\n Mark, a $159 AI bookmark, advertises itself as a tool to help users stop pulling out their phone to take notes while they\u2019re reading. While some readers might find the idea of an AI bookmark to be symptomatic of the same problem that pushes people toward a digital detox, Mark founder Eason Tang sees it differently.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way we try to brand it now is this sort of analog tool, very culturally integrated with design, film, books, and literature,\u201d Tang told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something undoubtedly absurd about using an AI bookmark to mediate your relationship with your phone, yet there is a bit of truth to Tang\u2019s pitch \u2014 when you stop reading to take notes or snap a photo of a key passage on your phone, you\u2019re bound to encounter some other distracting notification that interrupts your reading.<\/p>\n Though AI developments are almost synonymous with \u201cfast tech\u201d culture, there\u2019s a clear allure to the promise that AI agents could simplify our lives and give us more time away from screens.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that this idea that people want tools to serve them and not to dominate them is very profound,\u201d Howard said. \u201cI think what the \u2018slowtech\u2019 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\u2026 That\u2019s what people want: more control.\u201d<\/p>\n The ubiquity of AI turns some consumers off from the latest products, but this isn\u2019t their sole grievance with big tech. People are also disillusioned by these companies for continually bricking perfectly good hardware just to make us buy the latest model. Back Market, for example, rehabs discontinued laptops<\/a> and resells them with USB keys that can install ChromeOS Flex, which turns supposedly obsolete hardware into functioning Chromebooks.<\/p>\n \u201cOne 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,\u201d Howard said. \u201cHis rice cooker didn\u2019t have support anymore! This is actually a really cool use of AI \u2014 like, vibe coding your own app to keep your hardware alive longer.\u201d<\/p>\n While slowtech adherents may not all agree about AI use, the debate is secondary to the bigger problem at play: We\u2019ve created an ecosystem where we are so dependent on smartphones and our various apps that the whims of the tech industry can control how we cook rice. In this reality, it\u2019s no wonder that people are so eager to disconnect that they want to downgrade to an iPod Shuffle.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople just really want to take back control of their time, their lives, their attention,\u201d Howard said. \u201cThey\u2019re down for whatever helps them do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/backmarket.jpg?w=680\")
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