Will the Analog Trend End? Why Consumers Are Demanding Businesses “Get Real!”

Something has shifted in how people choose to spend their time. After more than a decade of “up and to the right,” time spent on social media peaked in 2022 and has been sliding ever since—down nearly 10 percent by the end of 2024, to roughly two hours and 20 minutes a day, according to an extensive GWI study commissioned by the Financial Times.

This isn’t a mass exodus; user counts are largely holding steady. It’s something subtler, and for marketers more telling: disengagement. About half of Americans say they cut back on social media in 2025 alone.

Call it digital fatigue, which has been with us for some time now. The causes are familiar—hours lost to the “doom scroll,” feeds that feel less like pursuing interests than being steered by an algorithm, relentless advertising, growing unease about personal data, and, ironically, mounting frustration with the security hoops that same unease seeks to correct. 

The result is a measurable turn toward things people can hold, attend, and experience in the physical world: 

• Vinyl records hit $1.04 billion in U.S. revenue in 2025—up 9.3 percent, and a 19th straight year of growth. Tellingly, many buyers admit to not owning a record player; the appeal is tactile, not just sonic. They want to own things they like. 

• Live events and concerts are booming. The U.S. live-music market reached roughly $18.5 billion in 2025, with ticket prices about 45 percent above 2019 levels, and global live entertainment is projected to climb to $270 billion by 2030. 

• Direct mail and catalogs command attention email can’t touch—averaging a 4.4 percent response rate versus 0.12 percent for email. That’s 37 times more effective and it’s seeing many marketers moving budget back toward the mailbox. 

• Print magazines are being relaunched around their physicality; i-D returned to UK newsstands in 2025, built squarely around Gen Z’s appetite for “tangible and collectible” media. 

• Print books still make up more than 80 percent of U.S. book unit sales—roughly 782 million copies in 2024, up about 23 percent across the decade—and Barnes & Noble is opening stores again. 

• Face-to-face socializing is returning too, with younger people trading smartphones for flip phones—dumbphone sales among 18–24-year-olds jumped roughly 148 percent from 2021 to 2024—and choosing lunch dates and handwritten letters over the feed. 

Underneath it all is a wellness instinct. Even the Global Wellness Summit named analog wellness its leading trend, and half of Gen Z vinyl fans describe the habit outright as a “digital detox.” The newest accelerant is “AI slop”—feeds crowded with machine-generated content that gives people one more reason to opt for tangible realities. 

Not a Retreat—A Rebalancing 

Digital isn’t going away, just as the analog “trend” won’t end. Digital is instead starting the process of maturing and finding its place. The smartest strategy has never been analog or digital—it’s both, working in concert. Digital delivers reach, targeting, and real-time measurement. Tangible experiences deliver presence, trust, and the kind of sustained attention screens increasingly struggle to hold. 

And the line between them is blurring in useful ways: channels like direct mail can now be tracked, personalized, and even automated—giving physical touchpoints the accountability marketers expect from digital.

The Tangible Really Works 

That’s where the right partner matters. Vomela helps brands show up in the physical world with the same rigor they bring to their digital strategy, across five connected capabilities: 

• Retail Signage & In-Store Environments—turn locations into experiences. 

• Events & Experiential—create moments worth showing up for. 

• Transportation & Fleet Graphics—put the brand in motion: every mile, every day. 

• Marketing Collateral—puts something considered and credible in customers’ hands. 

• Direct Mail Automation—makes the most personal channel measurable and repeatable. 

In a world of ephemeral impressions, tangible experiences—especially when paired with digital strategy—impact decisions and get results.