Slowtech: Reclaiming Focus from the Smartphone Attention Crisis

Tony Fadell, upon entering New York City’s 28th Street Subway Station, was surprised to encounter a five-by-four-foot advertisement for a product he had designed more than two decades prior. The poster prominently featured the iPod Shuffle, attracting commuters with its compelling slogan: “Zero screen time.”

“The first thing was, I thought, ‘Wait a second, did somebody not change the ad?’” Fadell, widely recognized as the creator of the iPod, recounted to TechCrunch. He added, “For somebody like me who knows that thing intimately, it’s like seeing your kid’s picture.”

While Fadell observed his surroundings in the station, he noted that commuters were universally equipped with wireless Bluetooth headphones, streaming music from their phones and accessing vast libraries of over 100 million songs. This ubiquitous technology, now taken for granted, renders Steve Jobs’ original iPod tagline—“one thousand songs in your pocket”—decidedly obsolete.

The compact iPod Shuffle, characterized by its reliance on shuffle playback and limited control compared to contemporary streaming applications, might seem unlikely to attract a modern demographic. However, society has become so deeply integrated with technology that devices, applications, and algorithms now mediate nearly every aspect of our lives, from daily errands to personal relationships. While smartphones offer immense functionality, they have also fostered a perpetual connectivity that often proves more draining than beneficial.

Joy Howard, CMO of Back Market, an online marketplace specializing in refurbished technology, explained to TechCrunch, “People are very oversaturated and overstimulated, and they really want to have a more mindful approach to what they’re doing with their tech.” She further observed, “There’s this fatigue that we have with the need to optimize every single aspect of our life.”

Howard and her team at Back Market were behind the iPod Shuffle advertisement that so surprised Fadell. Howard indicated that demand for this seemingly outdated technology is, in fact, increasing, asserting that the company would not have invested in a premium advertising spot in a busy New York City subway station if these devices weren't generating significant sales.

For younger demographics, who have grown up in a world defined by social media and smartphones, there is an undeniable allure to simpler technologies like wired headphones, retro gaming consoles, CDs, and digital point-and-shoot cameras. These individuals seek experiences that do not relentlessly compete for their attention. Vintage cameras lack the ability to upload directly to Instagram, classic games are free from intrusive gambling advertisements, and iPods do not algorithmically curate music based on predictive preferences. This deliberate embrace of less intrusive technology is what Howard terms “slowtech.”

Howard elaborated, “The ‘fast tech’ up until now has been all about eliminating friction… [Now], people are seeing friction as a way to create boundaries for themselves.” She expressed her astonishment, stating, “It’s 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.”

Coincidentally, around the period Fadell presented the iPod concept to Steve Jobs, Austin Murray established JAMDAT, a pioneering mobile gaming company that rapidly went public before being acquired by Electronic Arts for $680 million.

“When we were pitching our company back in 2000, 2001, people were laughing at us, saying, ‘Why would anyone play games on their cell phone?’” Murray recalled to TechCrunch.

Today, Murray faces similar skepticism from investors when he presents MOQA, his new screen-time reduction application, which he is developing to mitigate the very digital distraction he inadvertently contributed to creating.

“It’s watching what happened to my kids and the people around me that hurts my soul the most,” Murray lamented. He asserted, “When everyone is doing the same thing — meaning everyone, the average screen time is like five hours probably on a phone every day — it’s not a willpower problem. It’s a product design problem.”

The widespread desire to decrease time spent on phones, computers, and televisions is now undeniable, with approximately 53% of American adults expressing a wish to reduce their screen time.

Writer Calvin Kasulke, author of “Several People Are Typing,” a novel envisioning workers confined within a Slack workspace, shared his experience: “At a certain point, I realized that willpower was insufficient to not waste time on my phone.” He currently subscribes to Opal and Freedom, two applications aimed at curbing his screen time and social media engagement. Kasulke clarified, “I don’t need to limit my time on iMessage — that’s people who I really know! But I certainly don’t want to be wasting my time doomscrolling.”

“I want to be very clear… I don’t feel smug about this. It’s embarrassing to have two different apps to limit how I use this,” Kasulke stated. He elaborated, “I don’t think screens are inherently bad. I just think the way I was using [my phone] was worse and dumb, and now it’s a little bit less dumb.”

Some individuals have chosen to abandon their iPhones entirely, instead adopting flip phones, e-ink devices running Android, or minimalist touchscreen hardware such as the Light Phone.

Kaiwei Tang, co-founder of Light, informed TechCrunch, “Our customers for the last 10 years are telling us how they feel more free after switching to the Light Phone.” He added, “It’s 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.”

However, Murray expresses less optimism regarding the long-term viability of “dumb phones.”

“There’s certainly a movement of people who are just kind of anti-tech and ‘get it out of our lives,’” he acknowledged. Yet, he cautioned, “That’s really hard though, because then you realize you can’t do things that are now assuming you have a smartphone, like banking, or going into a hotel, or [using] credit cards.”

Kasulke declared that if Apple were to ever produce an e-ink iPhone, he would “f–ing donate plasma to be able to afford it.” Recognizing this as improbable, he maintains little interest in downgrading his current phone.

“I’m not like a, ‘I wish I could throw this thing in the toilet and go live in the woods’ kind of guy,” Kasulke clarified. He continued, “My 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.”

It is important to acknowledge that screen time is not inherently negative. It encompasses activities like video calls with family, texting friends, reading news, maintaining Duolingo streaks, or playing Wordle. However, while technology can foster connection, it frequently distracts us from the immediate present.

“It’s clear people want the convenience of digital, but they don’t want the annoyance of being always connected,” Fadell observed. He expressed his personal philosophy: “I’ve always been like, ‘We need less screens, not more of them.’ So to have an Apple Watch with everything, like, no, no, no — I don’t want more, I want less.”

Given his extensive experience as a product designer, Fadell’s insights often serve as a market indicator. Indeed, American expenditure on fitness trackers saw an 88% year-over-year increase, with market research firm Circana attributing this growth to screenless wearables such as the Oura ring and Whoop wristband. While these devices themselves lack screens, they still necessitate a smartphone for data visualization, potentially complicating the transition to a device like the Light Phone for their users.

However, the majority of consumers are not seeking radical shifts, such as adopting a flip phone. Instead, some are gravitating towards advanced hardware that, while still smartphone-dependent, aims to reduce overall screen engagement.

Introducing Mark, a $159 AI bookmark, marketed as a solution to prevent users from reaching for their phones to take notes during reading. While some might perceive an AI bookmark as a symptom of the very issue driving digital detox, its founder, Eason Tang, offers an alternative perspective.

“The way we try to brand it now is this sort of analog tool, very culturally integrated with design, film, books, and literature,” Tang shared with TechCrunch.

The company announced raising $1 million to reinvent reading, introducing Mark II as a $159 AI bookmark.

While the concept of an AI bookmark mediating one’s phone usage might seem paradoxical, there's validity in Tang’s argument: interrupting reading to take notes or photograph a passage with a phone inevitably exposes users to distracting notifications, disrupting focus.

Despite AI advancements often being associated with “fast tech” culture, there is a compelling appeal in the prospect that AI agents could streamline our lives and afford us more time away from digital screens.

“I think that this idea that people want tools to serve them and not to dominate them is very profound,” Howard asserted. She explained, “I think what the ‘slowtech’ 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… That’s what people want: more control.”

While the pervasive presence of AI deters some consumers from new products, it is not their only concern with major tech companies. Many are also frustrated by the industry’s practice of rendering perfectly functional hardware obsolete, seemingly to compel purchases of newer models. Back Market, for instance, rehabilitates discontinued laptops and provides USB keys that enable the installation of ChromeOS Flex, effectively transforming supposedly outdated hardware into operational Chromebooks.

Howard recounted, “One 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.” She continued, “His rice cooker didn’t have support anymore! This is actually a really cool use of AI — like, vibe coding your own app to keep your hardware alive longer.”

Although proponents of slowtech may hold differing views on AI integration, this discussion pales in comparison to the overarching issue: the creation of an ecosystem where our reliance on smartphones and their myriad applications is so profound that the dictates of the tech industry can even influence how we prepare food. Within this context, it is unsurprising that individuals are so keen to disconnect that they consider reverting to devices like the iPod Shuffle.

“People just really want to take back control of their time, their lives, their attention,” Howard concluded. “They’re down for whatever helps them do that.”