Latest / Mini Scroll / Chronically Offline Is The New Status Symbol (But You Still Have To Post About It...)

Transcript

Chronically Offline Is The New Status Symbol (But You Still Have To Post About It...) · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  This episode of Infinite Scroll is brought to you by Britta
• 0:04
  again. That's right, one of our
• 0:07
  favorite partners is back supporting both the podcast and
• 0:11
  our hydration needs in 2026. And we're doing things a little
• 0:16
  different this time. Online trends like water talk
• 0:19
  and the emotional support water bottle were a nice introduction
• 0:23
  to staying hydrated. But this year we're getting
• 0:26
  serious about our hydration goals with Britta's water filter
• 0:30
  jugs. We're ditching single use
• 0:32
  plastic bottles and enjoying pure, fresh tasting filtered
• 0:35
  water straight from any top. Britta helps us keep our
• 0:38
  hydration goals on point this year by making drinking water
• 0:42
  feel like an easy daily win instead of a chore.
• 0:46
  Thank you to Britta for supporting the podcast, keeping
• 0:49
  us hydrated, and helping us make 2026 our best year yet.
• 0:54
  This is an analog. Bag TikTok creator Cease
• 0:57
  Campbell says, pulling an oversteped tote into frame like
• 1:01
  a classic What's in My Bag style video, Cease walks the viewers
• 1:05
  through the contents instead of the purse essentials inside our
• 1:09
  crossword puzzles and unfinished knitting project, and a
• 1:13
  watercolor set. The items are all intended to
• 1:16
  keep Cease offline, or as Tiktok now calls it, analog.
• 1:20
  Following her post, the concept of the analog bag quickly took
• 1:24
  off, with thousands of people sharing their own versions on
• 1:27
  Tiktok. Users included items like
• 1:30
  notebooks, coloring books, junk journals, point and shoot
• 1:33
  cameras, all tools to keep you offline.
• 1:36
  Shared very publicly online. Posting the analog bag on TikTok
• 1:41
  is definitely ironic, but it also speaks to something bigger.
• 1:45
  Gen. Z is yearning to be chronically
• 1:48
  offline and actually touch grass.
• 1:50
  As our dependence on phones and social media intensifies, so
• 1:54
  does the desire to escape it. Instead of doom scrolling,
• 1:57
  people are reaching for film cameras, physical books, and
• 2:01
  embracing in real life hobbies, even if they still post about it
• 2:05
  afterward. After years of being totally
• 2:07
  committed to the digital world, Jen Zed seems to be pushing
• 2:11
  back. Could this finally be the dawn
• 2:13
  of the chronically offline era? And if so, how did we get here
• 2:19
  and why? From Centennial World, I'm
• 2:21
  Lauren Meisner and this is Infinite Scroll, a podcast about
• 2:25
  Internet culture, the creator economy and how social media is
• 2:28
  shaping Jen Zedd. Welcome back to our first deep
• 2:33
  dive of 2026. Everyone, please show some love
• 2:38
  for Britta. They are back.
• 2:40
  They are sponsoring all of our Q1 deep dives.
• 2:42
  I'm so excited and so grateful. They are honestly one of our
• 2:47
  favorite brands to partner with. I know you guys love them.
• 2:50
  They've literally kept us going. I cannot stress that enough.
• 2:54
  They have kept us going this past year and I'm so grateful to
• 2:59
  be entering 2026 with them as a partner again.
• 3:02
  So as always, Please remember to read, review, and subscribe.
• 3:06
  Please sign up to our newsletter called Keep Scrolling for we
• 3:09
  publish 3 * a month on Fridays. Also, we have a Patreon now for
• 3:14
  anyone that is not across that we we launched a Patreon in
• 3:17
  December and we publish 3 * a month as well on that.
• 3:25
  Being chronically offline has been positioned as the lifestyle
• 3:29
  shift for 2026. This conversation has been
• 3:32
  circulating for a few years now, showing up across multiple
• 3:36
  interconnected trends. But one word has come to
• 3:39
  underpin almost all of it in recent months.
• 3:42
  Analog. Scroll through TikTok and you
• 3:44
  will see creators and commentators discussing the
• 3:47
  return to analog or the embrace of an offline lifestyle.
• 3:51
  Within this discourse, there are a couple of central trends
• 3:54
  beyond the analog bag. Let's take a look.
• 3:57
  Arguably, the interest in the offline is perhaps most obvious
• 4:01
  in the way that many Gen. Z users are turning to older
• 4:04
  technology to replace or at least supplement their phones.
• 4:09
  The rise of point and shoot cameras, whether disposable film
• 4:13
  or digital, is a clear example. Where iPhone photography once
• 4:16
  dominated social media, Instagram feeds are now filled
• 4:20
  with crisp flash images that could have only been taken on a
• 4:23
  digital camera. Aside from aesthetics, these
• 4:26
  cameras offer a sense of distance.
• 4:28
  With all of us heavily reliant on our phones, these cameras
• 4:32
  provide a way to save memories. Without the constant attachment
• 4:35
  and association with social media, they allow IRL moments to
• 4:39
  be captured without the immediate desire to scroll,
• 4:42
  share and upload. As Kyle Chocker writes for The
• 4:44
  New Yorker quote, for many people, iPhone cameras are part
• 4:48
  and parcel of a broader digital addiction.
• 4:50
  They are forever at hand, which is convenient but also anxiety
• 4:54
  inducing. The same device that lets us
• 4:57
  document our experiences serves us breaking news alerts and work
• 5:00
  pings from the office in addition to beckoning us to turn
• 5:03
  our photos into content. Similar to the rise in point and
• 5:07
  shoot cameras, we have also seen the renewed interest in the dumb
• 5:10
  phone being basic mobile phones that lack so-called smart
• 5:14
  functions. Think the classic Nokia brick or
• 5:18
  the iconic bright pink Motorola racer.
• 5:20
  Interest in dumb phones has technically existed for years,
• 5:23
  but it appears it may have peaked in May 2024, according to
• 5:27
  Google search data. In the lead up, there was a
• 5:30
  steady stream of articles capitalizing on the rise of dumb
• 5:33
  phones among Gen. Z Days also interrogated the
• 5:36
  connection between dumb phones and self esteem, particularly
• 5:39
  among young girls. In that piece, the journalist
• 5:42
  noted that by limiting opportunities for comparison and
• 5:45
  surveillance on social media, Gen.
• 5:47
  Z users reported improvements in self esteem after switching to,
• 5:51
  or at the very least experimenting with dumb phones.
• 5:54
  So from digicams to flip phones, it's clear that many Gen.
• 5:58
  Z users are itching to step back from the digital world.
• 6:01
  But what is interesting is that this pull toward offline life
• 6:05
  rarely means disconnecting entirely.
• 6:08
  Instead, it's about replacing a newer technology with older
• 6:12
  technology, driven by a renewed obsession with physical media.
• 6:16
  Ahead of the new year, videos hailing 2026 as Quote the Year
• 6:21
  of Analog and the Year of Physical Media flooded TikTok.
• 6:25
  In a slew of aesthetic compilations, swipe through
• 6:28
  posts, and face to camera videos, users shared their
• 6:31
  favorite books, DVDs, records, old school magazines, and more.
• 6:35
  This return to physical media has long been promised to
• 6:38
  consumers. In 2023, lifestyle magazine
• 6:42
  Nylon announced it would return to print after going exclusively
• 6:45
  digital six years earlier. The comeback issue was released
• 6:48
  in April 2024 with a limited print run of 50,000.
• 6:52
  Locally, here in Australia, we saw a similar phenomenon.
• 6:55
  In the same year, L Australia revived its print edition.
• 6:58
  We have also witnessed digital first publishers and brands
• 7:01
  dabble in print and physical media.
• 7:04
  Hinge is one such example. In May 2025, the dating app
• 7:08
  launched the Ordinary Love campaign.
• 7:10
  Instead of classic Spawn Con, Hinge published a limited
• 7:13
  edition hardcover book featuring pieces by 5 different authors
• 7:18
  exploring their experiences and love and relationships.
• 7:21
  Z Feed is another example. Now, we often reference Z Feed,
• 7:25
  but for those of you who are unfamiliar, it's an independent,
• 7:28
  feminist, progressive indie media brand based here in
• 7:31
  Australia and was founded by my friend Crystal Andrews.
• 7:34
  While a digital first, publisher Z Feed has also welcomed the
• 7:38
  print revolution, publishing its first ever print edition in
• 7:41
  December. All that to say, there has been
• 7:43
  steady interest in living chronically offline for years.
• 7:47
  But something seems to have changed.
• 7:49
  It's clear that Gen. Z has yearned for some kind of
• 7:52
  distance from the Internet. But why is this desire peaking
• 7:55
  now? What is it about 2026
• 7:58
  specifically that has accelerated the turn toward
• 8:02
  analog? As usual, there are multiple
• 8:04
  factors at play here, and unfortunately we don't have time
• 8:08
  to cover all of them, although there are two overarching themes
• 8:12
  that we wanted to explore in this episode.
• 8:14
  First is how the digital landscape itself has changed
• 8:17
  over the past few years, and why those shifts might have actively
• 8:20
  pushed people to want more distance from the Internet.
• 8:23
  The second speaks to how social media has become aestheticized
• 8:27
  and that we are seeing more aesthetics that line with a
• 8:30
  chronically offline lifestyle. Let's begin with the former.
• 8:34
  Developments in the digital world have fundamentally changed
• 8:37
  how we experience the Internet and importantly, how fun it is
• 8:41
  to be there. Take AI for example.
• 8:43
  With Open AI and Meta releasing apps like Sora and Vibes
• 8:46
  respectively, AI generated content is infiltrating our
• 8:50
  primary content format, short form video.
• 8:53
  This isn't even to mention the amount of AI generated video
• 8:56
  that floods mainstream platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and
• 8:59
  TikTok. In May of last year, the Garbage
• 9:01
  Day newsletter found that four of the top 10 most subscribed to
• 9:05
  YouTube channels featured AI generated material.
• 9:08
  More recent data from video editing company Capwing found
• 9:12
  that 21 to 33% of YouTube's feed consists of AI generated slop or
• 9:18
  brain rot. As AI slop dominates a fair
• 9:20
  share of social media, users are growing tired of it for several
• 9:24
  reasons. But fundamentally, this content
• 9:27
  limits human to human interaction, making the Internet
• 9:30
  an increasingly lonely, boring, and simply unfulfilling place.
• 9:34
  Emma Maris for The Atlantic argued that the rise of AI slob
• 9:37
  is what's pushing some of Gen. Z offline.
• 9:40
  Here, she points to the untrustworthy nature of AI
• 9:43
  generated content and the difficulty in identifying it.
• 9:47
  As online information becomes akin to the Wild West, Maris
• 9:50
  suggests that increasing frequency of distrust and
• 9:53
  confusion may actually be the the quote UN quote cure for our
• 9:57
  collective Internet addiction. Quote.
• 10:00
  A real possibility is that people will turn to the real
• 10:03
  world as a more trustworthy alternative.
• 10:05
  We've been telling one another to touch grass for years, all
• 10:08
  while downloading app and website blocking software and
• 10:11
  lockable phone safe to try to wean ourselves off constant
• 10:15
  Internet use. Maybe the AI swap era will
• 10:18
  actually help us log off. This is a compelling argument,
• 10:22
  but perhaps an optimistic 1, something that Maris
• 10:26
  acknowledges later in the piece. Though many of us are
• 10:29
  distrustful of generative AI chat bots and their associated
• 10:32
  content, these tools can make our lives easier.
• 10:36
  Whether we like to admit it or not.
• 10:38
  As this tech matures, generative AI will be able to assist us in
• 10:42
  navigating more complex aspects of life.
• 10:45
  This is likely to make some of us even more dependent on the
• 10:48
  digital world than we already are.
• 10:50
  Unfortunately, we have already seen extreme instances of this.
• 10:54
  There have been multiple reports of ChatGPT users falling in love
• 10:57
  with the chat bot or turning to it amid mental health strife.
• 11:00
  While this is definitely not the norm, the vast majority of teens
• 11:04
  do admit to using AI tools frequently.
• 11:07
  Data from the Pew Research Center found that roughly 2/3 of
• 11:10
  teens, 64%, use an AI chat bot, with 31% of teens ages 15 to 17
• 11:18
  using chat bots daily. That level of accessibility is
• 11:22
  what matters here. Casual use today could become
• 11:25
  reliance tomorrow. Maris acknowledges this in her
• 11:29
  piece writing quote. The internet's new era may push
• 11:32
  AI skeptics to spend less time online while another group ramps
• 11:36
  up their AI mediated screen time.
• 11:38
  That split might have implications for the internet's
• 11:41
  culture and the culture at large.
• 11:43
  While AI is making human generated content increasingly
• 11:46
  scarce online, the rise of streaming platforms has come to
• 11:50
  control other forms of content consumption.
• 11:52
  These days, to watch a show or a movie, we log into Netflix,
• 11:56
  Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, or the like.
• 11:59
  We do not own a single piece of content that we watch.
• 12:02
  This is a far cry from the days of DVDs and videotapes.
• 12:06
  Here, access has replaced ownership as the default content
• 12:10
  consumption model. Being at the whims of big tech
• 12:12
  companies is something that many Gen.
• 12:14
  ZS are accustomed to, but this demographic is also starting to
• 12:18
  push back. Much of this comes down to Gen.
• 12:20
  Z spending habits and the trend toward values driven purchasing.
• 12:24
  The concept of values driven purchasing is exactly what it
• 12:27
  sounds like, prioritizing values when making consumption
• 12:30
  decisions, even during economic hardship.
• 12:33
  At its core, it requires consumers to ask who benefits
• 12:36
  financially and what they implicitly endorse when they
• 12:39
  spend on a product. Drawing on survey data from
• 12:42
  Lightspeed Commerce, Inc, WWD reported that that 96% of Gen.
• 12:48
  Z respondents say that they shop intentionally.
• 12:51
  It should be noted here that social desirability bias is
• 12:54
  probably a factor, which is the tendency for participants to
• 12:58
  answer questions in ways that will be viewed favorably by
• 13:01
  others. However, there is no denying
• 13:03
  that 96% is a massive number. Marketers and strategists often
• 13:07
  view product based businesses through the lens of values
• 13:10
  driven purchasing, but it's also helpful for our sake.
• 13:14
  The idea of being associated with with or relying on a big
• 13:17
  tech company to consume content is off putting to Gen.
• 13:20
  Z, even though it has also become the norm as big tech
• 13:24
  figures and companies publicize their political affiliations.
• 13:27
  The values driven purchasing model can definitely apply to
• 13:31
  service based platforms. In fact, we saw this last year
• 13:34
  with a slew of TikTok users explaining why they left
• 13:37
  Spotify, citing reasons like CEO Daniel X, investment in AI,
• 13:42
  military equipment, and ICE recruitment ads that kept
• 13:45
  popping up across the platform. For many users, opting out
• 13:49
  became a form of soft protest. Ultimately, when you buy a
• 13:53
  physical book, ADVD or ACD, the values associated with the
• 13:57
  artist or author feel clearer than grappling with the ethics
• 14:01
  of a tech conglomerate. With this in mind, it makes
• 14:03
  sense why people are gravitating back toward physical media and
• 14:07
  away from its digital counterparts.
• 14:09
  Interestingly, this heightened moral consciousness may be a by
• 14:12
  product of being chronically online.
• 14:14
  Now, the term chronically online can mean many things.
• 14:18
  There is no one unified definition.
• 14:21
  It may be the Twitter variant often used to describe someone
• 14:25
  who is so online that they have lost touch with reality,
• 14:29
  especially when it comes to politics.
• 14:31
  As Kate Lindsay put it in 2022 for the embedded newsletter
• 14:35
  quote, a chronically online person might tweet that advising
• 14:38
  writers to read books is ableist, or insist Anne Frank
• 14:42
  had white privilege, or make a list of problematic authors that
• 14:46
  puts Colleen Hoover next to William Shakespeare.
• 14:49
  Otherwise, being chronically online might refer to someone
• 14:52
  who spends a lot of time on social media, invested in all
• 14:55
  things Internet culture and the digital space, And we are the
• 14:59
  first to admit that Centennial World falls into this category.
• 15:03
  While the concept of being chronically online has been
• 15:05
  around since the 20 tens, it has become increasingly common over
• 15:09
  the past five years. Looking at Google Trends data,
• 15:11
  the term began to gain significant interest in 2021,
• 15:15
  reaching peak popularity in August 2022.
• 15:18
  The fact that many of us have become chronically online is
• 15:21
  what is significant here. We all know that the elites,
• 15:24
  whether that be industry bigwigs, neppo babies and
• 15:27
  socialites, set the tone agriculture.
• 15:29
  At the risk of sounding too populist here, these elites need
• 15:32
  something that makes them distinct from the masses.
• 15:35
  Of course, this might be achieved through accumulated
• 15:37
  wealth, institutional power, educational achievements and
• 15:41
  their social network, but it can also be through a distinct
• 15:44
  attitude or approach to culture and trends.
• 15:47
  In other words, if the masses are chronically online, it makes
• 15:50
  sense that the elite would swing the pendulum in the opposite
• 15:53
  direction. We have already seen some
• 15:55
  evidence of this. Tech creator Katherine Gets or
• 15:57
  Ask Kat GP PPT hosted a no Phone party on October 17th last year.
• 16:02
  It gained significant traction online and within mainstream
• 16:05
  media, where 1000 people RSVPD and 700 attended.
• 16:10
  Here you can make the claim that an influencer, someone who
• 16:13
  relies on the digital space and content consumption for their
• 16:17
  livelihood, hosting this kind of event indicates a shift among
• 16:20
  these cultural elites. Similar cues have emerged from
• 16:23
  other experts. Last year, esteemed journalist
• 16:26
  Kyle Chaca proclaimed that it is quote cool to have no followers.
• 16:30
  Now, in a piece for The New Yorker, in a conversation with
• 16:33
  Vogue business, TikTok brand strategist Eugene Healy said
• 16:37
  that quote dressing in a way that reflects online micro
• 16:40
  trends is increasingly viewed as a low status trait.
• 16:43
  It seems that with the world becoming chronically online,
• 16:46
  elites have decided that it is time to flip the script.
• 16:50
  However, a brief caveat is necessary here.
• 16:53
  This shift is not necessarily universal.
• 16:55
  There has been significant discourse since the beginning of
• 16:58
  2025 that political elites are more chronically online than
• 17:02
  ever, with many pointing to U.S. President Donald Trump and his
• 17:05
  administration's interest in X and Truth Social as examples.
• 17:09
  Returning to cultural elites, though, it's worth examining the
• 17:12
  aesthetics emerging within the circles that align with the
• 17:15
  pursuit of a chronically offline lifestyle.
• 17:18
  One perhaps unexpected example is the rise of the cool girl
• 17:22
  aesthetic. What's interesting about the
• 17:25
  called Cool Girl is that she isn't just a vibe shift.
• 17:28
  She represents A behavioral change when it comes to how
• 17:31
  people are treating the online world.
• 17:34
  In a digital culture built on oversharing, the Cool Girl's
• 17:37
  power comes from restraint and appearing chronically offline.
• 17:41
  Over the years, pop culture has seen many iterations of the
• 17:44
  girl, all associated with a different aesthetic, posting
• 17:48
  style, and even platforms. There was the Visco Girl, a
• 17:51
  subculture filled with mostly teens and tweens wearing
• 17:54
  oversized T-shirts and shell necklaces, hydro flasks and
• 17:58
  scrunchies in hand. There was that Girl, an
• 18:01
  aspirational lifestyle trend featuring put together women
• 18:04
  sharing clean living, healthy habits, and minimalist style.
• 18:08
  But perhaps the most famous girl is the clean girl.
• 18:11
  As we all know, the clean girl is most famous for her slicked
• 18:14
  back buns, no makeup looks, and basic but chic style.
• 18:18
  Branding different types of girls feels pretty ominous,
• 18:21
  partly because many of these aesthetics or trends harbor
• 18:24
  Eurocentric or racist undertones, as we have discussed
• 18:28
  across past episodes. But it at times also feels like
• 18:32
  a way to keep women in check by forcing them to adhere to a
• 18:35
  single aesthetic trend or lifestyle.
• 18:37
  It is a form of branding, but with real people and lives.
• 18:41
  In many ways, these girl archetypes don't just describe
• 18:45
  how and look, they direct how they should live, behave, and be
• 18:48
  perceived online. Having said that, the most
• 18:51
  recent edition of the Something girl to emerge online is the
• 18:55
  cool girl. She has a response to the
• 18:57
  constrained and arguably stale aesthetic that has come with
• 19:01
  clean girl trends and culture. The cool girls Instagram grid is
• 19:04
  dark and Moody. She often wears all black
• 19:07
  outfits and rocks messy Smokey eye makeup.
• 19:10
  The cool girl doesn't come across as trying to be cool.
• 19:13
  She has an effortless, unique energy.
• 19:16
  She doesn't conform to trends, she sets them.
• 19:18
  She also doesn't overshare. Her presence online is
• 19:22
  selective. I know this sounds vague, but
• 19:24
  the cool girl is hard to define because what is considered cool
• 19:28
  changes over time. Take pop music as an example.
• 19:31
  In our deep dive into the rise of the Gen.
• 19:34
  Z pop girlies, we discussed how the phenomenon of rock ISM made
• 19:38
  it uncool to enjoy pop music to the point where people wouldn't
• 19:41
  even admit to listening to it in the 90s and early 2000s.
• 19:45
  The vibe has completely shifted since then.
• 19:48
  Since 2024, Gen. Z have embraced the pop girls
• 19:51
  wholeheartedly, sharing intelligent analysis of new
• 19:54
  singles and breakdowns of tour performances on TikTok.
• 19:58
  Illustrating the transients of coolness through examples like
• 20:01
  this can be helpful, but a theoretical and historical
• 20:04
  approach is more telling. In fact, creator Matt Prebeg
• 20:08
  discussed how coolness has transformed in a TikTok video
• 20:11
  essay at the end of last year. Matt noted that the idea of
• 20:14
  being cool. Originated in African American
• 20:17
  culture, sighting jazz circles in the middle of the 20th
• 20:20
  century. Coolness would later appear in
• 20:22
  subsequent counterculture movements.
• 20:24
  Where cool was initially rooted in subcultures.
• 20:26
  Modern Internet culture has changed everything.
• 20:29
  Algorithms are personalized and trained to introduce receptive
• 20:33
  users to subcultures and niche corners around the Internet.
• 20:36
  This allows virtually anything to become mainstream, pushing
• 20:40
  coolness toward existing as an aesthetic.
• 20:43
  But as we moved into the platform era with the famous
• 20:46
  algorithm, things changed. The thing with algorithms is
• 20:49
  it's literally their job to find niche things and blast it to as
• 20:53
  many people as possible. It makes a pattern out of
• 20:55
  everything. So cool as this cultural logic
• 20:58
  of opposing the mainstream doesn't really work if
• 21:00
  everything is subject to becoming mainstream so quickly.
• 21:03
  Coolness also can't really be about subculture because social
• 21:07
  media kind of flattens context like we post for everyone.
• 21:10
  So it's this balancing act of being legible, understandable to
• 21:13
  the public, while still showing your individuality.
• 21:16
  And what we get is this reflexivity where we're aware
• 21:18
  that we're all performing all the time.
• 21:20
  So if cool used to rely on scarcity in subculture, it can't
• 21:24
  really do that anymore. And this is where the coolness
• 21:26
  industrial complex comes in. Without context, cool is a
• 21:29
  little more aesthetic, I guess, less about opposition and more
• 21:32
  about signaling taste. So we look for the next cool
• 21:34
  thing to be ahead of the curve. We help accelerate its
• 21:36
  visibility. And then it becomes.
• 21:38
  Mainstream analysis It's clear that the original concept of
• 21:42
  coolness has been completely toppled.
• 21:44
  It isn't necessarily about messaging, individuality, or
• 21:47
  authenticity. It's a performance, and for
• 21:50
  women, the performance of cool has historically been defined by
• 21:54
  the male gaze. When it comes to the recent
• 21:56
  iteration of the internet's Cool girl, Charli XCX and her Brat
• 22:00
  era are notable influences. The 360 music video is a case in
• 22:05
  point. It was stacked with Internet it
• 22:07
  girls and cool girls like Quen Blackwell, Emma Chamberlain and
• 22:11
  Rachel Sennett, many of whom Gen.
• 22:13
  Z try to emulate in their fashion content and vibe.
• 22:16
  Charlie XC XS rise to mainstream fame shows just how central
• 22:20
  coolness and being niche have been to her career.
• 22:23
  She even wrote a piece about it on her sub stack last year
• 22:26
  titled The Death of Cool. She explored her own
• 22:29
  relationship with coolness. Writing quote.
• 22:32
  Let me just state that of course I would much rather be
• 22:34
  considered cool by a select few group of people then known by
• 22:38
  everyone. And yes, I know it's inherently
• 22:40
  lame to care about that kind of stuff, but I'm just being
• 22:43
  honest. My penchant for coolness
• 22:45
  probably points to my deep rooted insecurity, or perhaps
• 22:49
  I'd even go as far as calling it a fear of being boring.
• 22:52
  While Internet users pretty heavily criticized this piece,
• 22:56
  Charlie does make an interesting comparison here.
• 22:58
  She positions coolness in opposition to being boring.
• 23:01
  This helps us understand the internet's modern cool girl and
• 23:05
  how it relates to moving offline.
• 23:07
  A common theme among Pinterest and Instagram cool girl is that
• 23:10
  much of what they post does not show the whole story.
• 23:14
  It's about creating intrigue, the very opposite of being
• 23:17
  boring. They may post a zoomed in outfit
• 23:20
  detail pic, blurry pictures on a night out, or photos facing away
• 23:24
  from the camera. Not to mention the captions.
• 23:27
  They're rather vague and mysterious.
• 23:29
  Part of this cool girl vibe is not posting super often or
• 23:32
  sharing every aspect of your life, leading Gen.
• 23:35
  Z to move away from posting everything they do and actually
• 23:39
  embrace the chronically offline, or at least pretend to.
• 23:42
  Ultimately, if the cool girl archetype is the one to aspire
• 23:45
  to, showing up online selectively creates a sense of
• 23:49
  scarcity, and in an attention economy built on excess and
• 23:53
  oversharing, scarcity is power. Now that we've explored why Gen.
• 23:57
  Z might want to appear chronically offline, we need to
• 23:59
  ask a different question. Is this something that could
• 24:02
  actually happen? Does Gen.
• 24:04
  Z actually want this or is it just a trend?
• 24:07
  Because if social media is a performance, then the discourse
• 24:10
  around being analog and offline might just be that discourse.
• 24:15
  To begin answering this question, I would be remiss not
• 24:18
  to acknowledge that not everyone has the luxury of logging off.
• 24:21
  This brings us back to a point we touched on earlier, cultural
• 24:25
  elites needing to differentiate themselves from the masses.
• 24:28
  In a world where the digital space is central to work,
• 24:31
  communication, relationships and identity, logging off isn't
• 24:35
  always a choice. Social media might be the
• 24:37
  primary way some people stay connected to their work,
• 24:39
  communities or even families. Sometimes it's just not viable
• 24:43
  to go offline. This is especially true when we
• 24:46
  look beyond the global N Around the world, women are less likely
• 24:50
  than men to have Internet access, which directly effects
• 24:53
  their ability to access education, information and
• 24:56
  economic opportunities. Data from the University of
• 24:59
  Oxford shows that while women and men have relatively equal
• 25:02
  Internet access and high income countries, this is not the same
• 25:06
  across the world. As the research notes quote,
• 25:08
  women in low and middle income countries are 22% less likely to
• 25:12
  use the Internet and 14% less likely to own a mobile phone.
• 25:17
  Gender gaps in Internet use and mobile ownership are especially
• 25:20
  large in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
• 25:24
  This completely reframes the aspiration of being chronically
• 25:27
  offline as one largely confined to wealthy Western contacts.
• 25:32
  And even within those contacts, the reality is far messier than
• 25:36
  trend forecasters often suggest. Take Australia's under sixteens
• 25:40
  social media ban. Last December, the Australian
• 25:42
  government enacted a world first policy that restricts children's
• 25:46
  use of major social media platforms.
• 25:49
  The ban was passed into law a year prior given the included
• 25:52
  social media platforms time to implement age verification
• 25:55
  systems. At the time of recording, around
• 25:58
  4.7 million social media accounts have been closed.
• 26:01
  But what's interesting here is how young people initially
• 26:04
  responded to the ban. Rather than embracing the
• 26:06
  offline, many under sixteens actively tried to circumvent the
• 26:10
  restrictions. Some reportedly used older
• 26:12
  siblings IDs to verify their age.
• 26:15
  Meanwhile, others migrated to platforms that weren't included
• 26:18
  in the ban. This behavior might be explained
• 26:20
  by psychological reactants, a phenomenon where people become
• 26:24
  more motivated to reclaim a freedom once it has been
• 26:27
  threatened or removed. Here, being told you must leave
• 26:30
  social media can actually intensify the desire to stay.
• 26:34
  This action could also be a fear of losing what was considered
• 26:38
  normal. This generation has grown up
• 26:40
  online, so having that access suddenly taken away, it would be
• 26:43
  confronting and scary. But all of this points to a
• 26:46
  broader truth. The push toward analog life
• 26:49
  isn't happening evenly or even willingly across Gen.
• 26:53
  Z. That being said, there are clear
• 26:55
  incentives to remain online. Beyond financial opportunities,
• 26:58
  social media has become central to building community and a
• 27:01
  public profile that might help you down the line.
• 27:04
  This brings us to a recent conversation around socialite
• 27:07
  and influencer Becca Bloom. Despite being the daughter of
• 27:10
  tech entrepreneurs, Becca continues to post consistently
• 27:13
  online. People have questioned why
• 27:15
  someone with what seems like unlimited material resources
• 27:19
  would even need to be on social media.
• 27:21
  As TikTok users have pointed out, fame and community are two
• 27:25
  things that money it can't really buy.
• 27:27
  Being online isn't financial for her, it might be more about
• 27:30
  building influence and belonging.
• 27:32
  Another incentive worth considering is that the move
• 27:35
  toward analog or physical media can itself become another form
• 27:40
  of overconsumption. This isn't to say we shouldn't
• 27:42
  be buying physical books, CDs, or DVDs, just that we don't need
• 27:46
  to overdo it. TikTok creator What Zara Loves
• 27:49
  recently explored this phenomenon in a video,
• 27:52
  questioning whether the return of physical media is anything
• 27:55
  more than a micro trend for some social media users.
• 27:59
  She notes that many analog products risk becoming
• 28:01
  aestheticized commodities, which are destined to be discarded and
• 28:05
  sent to landfill, much like the Liboo boos of last year.
• 28:09
  I'm scared physical media falls to the same fate as Stanley cops
• 28:12
  or liboo boos. This like hyper popularity,
• 28:14
  complete overconsumption and then just discarded on to the
• 28:17
  next thing. It's the micro trend of all.
• 28:19
  I think it's viewed as a rejection of digital media and
• 28:22
  almost a replacement to your phone.
• 28:24
  And I think that's exactly why physical media has the complete
• 28:27
  capacity to be overconsumed here and almost turned into a trend
• 28:30
  and something to be performed rather than actively consumed.
• 28:34
  Because if you view physical media as a replacement to your
• 28:37
  phone to digital media, the void to fill is fucking.
• 28:40
  Huge. Of course, this isn't true
• 28:42
  across the board, but it's definitely one reason why some
• 28:45
  Gen. Z's might prefer to stick to
• 28:47
  digital media. All in all, while the idea of
• 28:50
  being chronically offline is appealing and even aspirational,
• 28:54
  the reality is far more complicated than TikTok videos
• 28:58
  might suggest. For many Gen.
• 28:59
  Z users, this quote UN quote trend isn't about fully logged.
• 29:04
  Instead, the Gen. Z obsession with all things
• 29:06
  analog reflects an eagerness to adjust their participation in
• 29:11
  the digital world that can at times, feel overwhelming and
• 29:14
  exhausting. That's not even to mention how
• 29:16
  ironic this quote UN quote movement can be.
• 29:19
  We cannot ignore the hypocrisy that becomes evident when users
• 29:23
  take to TikTok to preach an analog lifestyle.
• 29:25
  In doing so, they're perpetuating the very behaviors
• 29:28
  they claim to be distancing themselves from, reaffirming
• 29:31
  just how difficult it is for most of us to be chronically
• 29:34
  offline in the truest sense of the term.
• 29:38
  And Big Tech is likely to capitalize on this.
• 29:40
  TikTok creator Carm Scrolls recently posted a video
• 29:43
  addressing this exact phenomenon.
• 29:45
  In it, she argued that Big tech companies are highly adaptable
• 29:49
  and will likely repackage offline desire into new forms of
• 29:52
  engagement. She points to platform features
• 29:55
  that might focus on meeting people IRL, or apps that
• 29:58
  emphasize the 5:00 to 9:00. Offline activities and hobbies
• 30:01
  are picking up major speed right now online and the word that's
• 30:04
  becoming synonymous with this non digital renaissance is
• 30:07
  analog. Now some people are predicting a
• 30:09
  mass exodus from our phones but I'm more skeptical and tech
• 30:12
  companies are savvy so I see them adapting to this behavioral
• 30:15
  shift in new ways and challenging the anti social
• 30:17
  media that Meta and whatever this is appear to be embracing.
• 30:20
  My sense is the next wave of social media esque apps to
• 30:24
  emerge and thrive will zero in on your 5 to 9 and aim to
• 30:27
  facilitate in person connection. The late stage signals are all
• 30:31
  there like Tik toks about chaining your phone to the wall
• 30:33
  or printing out your Instagram feed.
• 30:35
  Cat GPT's recent no phone party in LA, the concept of the analog
• 30:39
  bag popularized by influencer cease Campbell cozy coloring
• 30:42
  talk and even the surge in things like Luis Carmen
• 30:44
  notebooks that are almost $200 USD and new apps are emerging
• 30:48
  like Rodeo from former Hinge CEO that claims to wrangle your non
• 30:51
  work calendar or elbow that helps you actually do the things
• 30:54
  you save online. While Gen.
• 30:56
  Z may be ready to go offline, it's clear that it remains an
• 30:59
  uphill battle. Doing so requires more than just
• 31:03
  individual willpower. It's likely to demand a complete
• 31:06
  reevaluation of how we communicate and socialize in
• 31:09
  society. And even then, Big Tech will not
• 31:12
  make this easy. Logging off doesn't just mean
• 31:15
  breaking a technology addiction. It means unraveling ourselves
• 31:18
  from a system designed to keep us infinitely scrolling.
• 31:23
  Infinite Scroll is a podcast produced, presented and Co
• 31:27
  written by me, Lauren Meisner for Centennial World.
• 31:30
  This episode was researched and Co written by Annabelle Ben
• 31:33
  David. Thank you so much for listening.
• 31:35
  I love you guys and I will talk to you guys next week.
• 31:38
  Bye. Centennial World Podcast network
• 31:40
  operates on Gadigal land. We would like to acknowledge the
• 31:43
  Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this
• 31:46
  land, and pay our respects to elders both past and present.