There’s a new “it” bag – but this time it is not about a designer label or splashy logo. Instead, it’s what is inside that counts.

So-called analogue bags, filled with activities such as crosswords, knitting, novels and journals, have become the unexpected accessory of the season.

They are being championed by millennials and gen Z as a way to reduce screen time. Similar to a prep bag, the idea is that the bag or basket should contain the essentials needed to remain offline for as long as possible. One user describes it as a “toy box for your attention span”.

David Sax, the author of The Revenge of Analog, approves of the trend. “The idea that we can all just get into a lotus pose and fall into a state of meditative bliss is wildly unrealistic for the vast majority of us,” he says. “Our phones have everything you could ever ask for, so you need an alternative to hand in order to fill that void.”

The term was coined by Sierra Campbell, a 31-year-old content creator based in California. “My biggest fear is that I’ll lie on my deathbed and regret how much time I spent on phone,” she says in a TikTok video in which she first suggests the concept.

The idea has – somewhat paradoxically – become hugely popular on social media, with users posting videos talking through the contents of their analogue bags and sharing tips on what to fill them with. Some refer to them as their “stop scrolling” bags.

There are analogue wicker baskets for evenings on the sofa, bags for long journeys and even some for romantic weekends away. Suggestions include doing a joint wordsearch rather than playing Wordle individually.

Campbell’s January analogue bag video – featuring a subscription to the New Yorker magazine, gel pens and a sketchbook – has been viewed more than 200,000 times in five days.

The trend forms part of a wider backlash against a culture of doomscrolling and the pressure to always be online. According to Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, the average adult in Great Britain checks their phone every 12 minutes. A 2022 survey by USwitch found that the average daily time among UK adults averaged five hours, in addition to screen-related work tasks.

The analogue bag offers a way to reclaim attention and minimise screen use. Photograph: LumiNola/Getty Images

Analogue bags sit alongside a resurgence in analogue technologies such as vinyl records, physical magazines and point-and-shoot cameras. Offline, in-person activities – including “cosy hobbies” such as pottery classes, crochet circles and even dinner parties – are also on the rise.

Campbell says the catalyst for the analogue bag, which has reduced her screen time from seven hours a day to three, came from reading Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. In the book, Duhigg outlines three components of a habit: cue, routine and reward.

Rather than trying to eliminate a bad habit, he argues that it is more effective to keep the cue and reward while changing the routine. For Campbell, this meant reaching for a bag of screen-free activities instead of her phone.

“If you go to your phone for news, put a newspaper in your bag,” Campbell says. “If it’s for entertainment, try a good book. For creative inspiration, sketching tools or knitting. It’s just like physical fitness – whatever activity you’ll actually do is the best one to include.”

Rather than a brief digital detox, the analogue bag trend suggests people are attempting to change their relationship with screens for the long term.

Pete Etchells, a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University and author of Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time, argues that rather than being addicted to our phones, we have simply formed habits around their use. He hopes the rise of analogue bags is “a shift in how people understand their relationship with technology”.

“We do have agency and control over what we do with our time,” Etchells says. “And if you are not happy with how you use your phone and how you use social media, it’s great that people are starting to think about what the [options] look like – and how we can make access easier to those.”