What it means to make things slowly in a fast, digital world.
As a college student, I spend most of my time staring at a screen. Whether it’s completing different assignments, studying different PowerPoints or scrolling through my phone for hours on end, it’s something that can’t be avoided.
Like many students, I wanted to spend my winter break catching up on the projects that I put to the side due to schoolwork. However, despite my plans, most of my break consisted of weekly notifications that alerted me to my ever-increasing screen time.
As a solution, I decided to pick up a hobby that would keep me off my phone.
I wanted to prove to myself that I could learn a new skill while also keeping my brain busy. I decided to pick up a skill that had been on my radar for a while: crocheting.
After a trip to the craft store, I gathered the basic supplies to teach myself how to crochet. With a small variety pack of hooks, stitch markers and a skein of yarn, I was able to teach myself how to crochet for under $20. Instead of doomscrolling on my phone, I slowly started to spend my screen time watching numerous tutorials on how to crochet various stitches and beginner projects.
While doing my research on how to get started, I began to find that I wasn’t alone in trying to begin a new hobby to get me off my phone. I started to see that many other online users were also doing the same, using the new year as a push to start exploring analog hobbies.
So, then, what does going analog actually mean?
It means reducing one’s screen time and screen-based media and instead replace it with a more tangible lifestyle. Finding an analog hobby requires replacing digital tools with physical activities, adopting a better mental focus along with reducing stress as a result.
While finding an analog hobby and reducing screen time can sound ideal to many college students, there is one factor that can prevent many of us from learning a new hobby – time. With school assignments, jobs and time for a social life, fitting in time to adopt an analog hobby can seem more overwhelming than calming.
Associate professor at DePaul University Samantha Close has made it a goal in 2026 to fit more time into her busy school schedule for her own analog hobbies of quilting and knitting.
“I try to do an hour in the morning,” Close said. “I set a phone alarm so that I don’t have to be looking at the clock and thinking about time.”
Through her go-to analog hobbies, Close has grown to find an interpersonal connection to her craft as she can use it to create projects for her loved ones.
“When you’re doing something analog and it’s craft, there’s only one of them,” she said. “Like, I have one cousin that I’m going to knit one scarf and give it to her. I have one wife that I’m making one sweater for.”
Many college students have so much stress filling in the various parts of their lives, whether it’s in or outside of academics. For these students, finding ways to incorporate an analog hobby into their schedule can therefore become a very important way of destressing and focusing on the present.
“I think it comes down to a very basic truth, which is that if you don’t make time, you will never have time,” Close said. “If you’re always waiting for when the perfect moment happens and have this hour-free time, you’re never going to have an hour-free time.”
While many of us like to spend hours on social media without noticing, half of that time can be used to enjoy an analog hobby and destress for a part of your day.
“Maybe that means you compress the amount of time that you’re spending on social media,” she said. “Maybe it means you are knitting while you’re watching TV or scrolling through Tiktok.”
When crocheting something that involves repeating the same pattern row after row, I often will put on a movie to watch in the background. It isn’t until the movie is over that I realize I have spent an hour and a half off of my phone, only focusing on my stitches. It never feels that I have spent hours working on a project. Instead, I find myself feeling accomplishment as my project gets one step further to completion.
Eliminating the time I use to scroll through social media and focusing it on my analog hobby has made my days feel more productive. Instead of doomscrolling at the end of my night, I now find myself spending at least an hour working on my current crochet project. Partaking in an analog hobby that requires me to use my hands to craft something is now what I look forward to most nights. Without realizing it, crocheting taught me how to slow down and focus on what is in front of me.
Header Image by Alex Carrasquillo
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