Reported by The Guardian
From apps that block distractions to stripped-down phones, young people are finding ways to unplug from platforms they say profit from their attention
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Nelissa Moukoudi, 19, a university student in Canada, noticed a shift once she joined Instagram and TikTok.
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“My social life completely plummeted and it felt like my life was only [using] social media and school,” she said.
Tired of fighting for self-control, Moukoudi downloaded Opal, an app that forces users to solve math problems before reopening distracting apps. It is one of a growing number of companies in the sprawling digital detox industry that is enticing users – ideally paying ones – by promising to keep them off their devices. The industry is valued at nearly $1bn and is estimated to grow to nearly $8bn by 2035.
Many of these companies are hoping to capitalize on gen Z’s growing weariness about the devices and social media platforms they grew up with. Nearly 60% of gen Z respondents identified as having a social media addiction in an April poll, and a third of the generation said they had deleted some of those apps, according to a 2025 survey.
The shift has also been driven by growing anger at tech platforms that have left some in gen Z feeling as if they are being exploited for profit.
Gen Z “was basically optimized for dopamine by very smart systems”, said Kenneth Schlenker, 39, a former product marketer at Google and co-founder of Opal. “But this generation is also realizing what they don’t want and are trying to change how the system impacts them.”
Some are turning to new devices entirely. Kendall Schrohe, 23, a founding partner of the Attention Studio, a consulting firm advising parents and policymakers on responsible tech, said that she traded her smartphone for a Light Phone , which sells for $349 and includes minimal smartphone features.
“These big tech platforms have been hurting people for years, and we are just now feeling the impacts of it,” Schrohe said. “Our generation were…