I spent a week using an analogue bag – one of the latest trends to sweep social media.
The term was coined by Sierra Campbell – a Californian content creator – and went viral for the first time from her Instagram post on 29th August 2025.
An analogue bag is a portable bag used to carry non-digital activities to reduce mobile phone screentime.
Campbell said: “Nobody wants to be addicted to their phones, everybody’s looking for a way out.
“I do think with the rise of AI… people kind of hit their collective rock bottom.”
Campbell talked about her desire to provide her children with a non-digital childhood.
She said: “Both times I’ve had a fresh baby I’m so painfully aware that, what I do, they will replicate.
“That’s my whole hope in my life: I’d have some part in getting people back to the physical world.”
Campbell’s first viral TikTok post on analogue bags now has 29,000 likes, 300 comments, and 2,000 shares.
Sierra Campbell with her analogue bag
My analogue bag accompanied me everywhere for a week, a very fetching tote bag at that.
I found the whole experience to be rather enjoyable, as I was taken away from my usual virtual haunts of Instagram and TikTok, and redirected to such pleasures as reading a novel or using a colouring-in book.
As with Campbell, I experienced what was essentially a pre-digital childhood and this week felt like a return to that.
An activity that surprised me with its joyfulness was learning the names of the Kings and Queens of England from a royalty-themed pack of cards.
Learning to juggle was exciting, yet the venture only lasted a total of 7 minutes.
Below is a graph of all activities attempted and the time spent on each.
A bar chart showing the time spent on each analogue bag activity.
As you can see, the far and away most time-consuming activity was my puzzle book, which included learning the meanings of words such as aver (state to be the case) and tenon (a joinery term for a wooden joint).
Interestingly, my overall screentime did not decrease.
I found that I was drawn to my phone for different reasons, usually to search something up from my reading or the definitions of words from the puzzle book.
I loved using the old iPod nano because there was only a limited number of songs on there, and no AI suggesting new songs to listen to as is the case on Spotify.
You really get to appreciate the music you have available to you.
I found my attention-span, tolerance for boredom, and enjoyment of the little pleasures of life increased.
My social media screentime reduced by 30 minutes from a daily average of two hours in week 1 (without an analogue bag) to an hour and a half in week 2 (with an analogue bag).
A line graph showing a progressive reduction in social media screentime over the course of a fortnight.
My productivity and finance screentime increased from a daily average of 35 minutes during week 1 to 52 minutes during week 2.
A line graph showing an increase in productivity and finance screentime over the fortnight.
But does the analogue bag live up to the hype?
It certainly did for me because it altered the way I interacted with technology, although it did not affect my overall screentime.
In the future, I will use an analogue bag to do the non-digital activities I enjoyed the most.
I may have jettisoned some of the less exciting contents, but an analogue bag will remain a valued possession of mine for years to come.
Featured image: me with my analogue bag
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