The Rush to Unplug

AMES AND ELLEN Patterson are hardly Luddites.But the couple, who both work in tech, made an unexpectedly old-timey decision during the renovaJ tion of their 1928 Washington, D.C., home last year. The Pattersons had planned to use a spacious unfinished basement room to store James's music equipment, but noticed that their children, all under age 21, kept disappearing down there to entertain themselves for hours without the aid of tablets or TVs.Inspired, the duo brought a new directive to their design team. The subterranean space would become an "analog room": a studiously screenfree zone where the family could play board games together, practice instruments, listen to records or just lounge about lazily, undistracted by devices.For decades, we've celebrated the rise of the "smart home"-knobless, switchless, effortless and entirely orchestrated via apps. But evidence suggests that screen-free "dumb" spaces might be poised for a comeback. Many smart-home features are losing their luster as they raise concerns about surveillance and, frankly, just don't function. New York designer Christine Gachot said she'd never have to work again "if I had a dollar for every time I had a client tell me 'my smart music system keeps dropping off' or 'I can't log in." " Google searches for "how to reduce screen time" reached an alltime high in 2025. In the past four years on TikTok, videos tagged #AnalogLife-cataloging users' embrace of old technology, physical media and low-tech lifestyles-received over 76 million views. And last month, Architectural Digest reported on nostalgia for old-school tech: "landline in hand, cord twirled around finger." Catherine Price, author of "How to Break Up With Your Phone," calls the trend heartening.