"I saw something on TikTok yesterday that I truly believe changed my life."
This is how the video begins, where a young American woman shows how she walks in the sun while talking about the trend that she believes has fundamentally changed her: “silent walking.” Silent walks.
The point is to take a walk without listening to music or making a call. You should just walk, in your own thoughts.
A similar trend is what is called “rawdogging”. You travel by train, plane or bus without any form of stimulation. You don't read anything, look at comics or your mobile phone, says social media expert Johannes Gustavsson.
He mentions a third example that has recently emerged: analog bags. On social media, influencers show how they pack crossword puzzles, coloring books, crochet hooks and Polaroid cameras in what they call an “analog bag.” When the urge to scroll strikes, you can instead pull out your analog bag and paint watercolors, or write a poem.
These are fun trends, but they also have elements of a larger movement. People are becoming more aware of their screen time, says Johannes Gustavsson.
A way to escape
23-year-old Tindra Fahl has set a hard limit for herself: a maximum of one hour of mobile phone time a day.
"Usually my screen time was between three and seven hours a day. Sometimes up to eleven hours," she says.
The mobile phone became a way of escaping during a tough period, says Tindra Fahl. But even though life now feels easier, the addiction is difficult to break.
She has felt stuck on the bright sofa in her apartment in Gothenburg at times. She has things to do, needs to get up and get to work on cleaning, cooking, and working.
But the screen is hard to let go of.
"I want to do a lot: maybe write a book, get my dream job or a dream apartment. But I realized that I was doing absolutely nothing to get there. All the hours I spent on my phone every day I could have used to get closer to my goals," she says.
For the past few weeks, she has been posting daily updates on TikTok about how the challenge is going. There, she shows off how many minutes she has used her phone and is met with cheers from her followers.
Maybe it's a bit contradictory to try to reduce your screen time through a challenge on social media, Tindra Fahl admits.
But I count the time it takes in my hour. When I'm done with Tiktok, I have maybe 30 minutes of screen time left for something else.
Emma got a push-button telephone
Many young adults feel addicted to their smartphones and are aware of the negative effects of using them, according to a study from the University of Gothenburg, conducted in January 2025.
The study, which is based on a national survey combined with focus groups between the ages of 20 and 35, shows that young women feel more stressed by their phones than young men.
Emma Fyhr, 18, was one of those who long felt bad about too much screen time. She would delete social media at times – but they were only a few clicks away, and it was all too easy to download again.
The solution was an old-fashioned push-button phone, a Nokia.
I have more time for other things and better concentration. Before, I would pick up my phone and check what was happening every second, if I was waiting for the bus, for example. Now I can just sit and think, she says.
During the five months that Emma Fyhr has been without her smartphone, she has started playing golf, gone out for more runs, read more books and made a pen pal.
I would never have done that if I still had my cell phone.
“You miss out on life”
But it's not entirely easy. There are practical obstacles: the extra job at an accounting firm requires a mobile bank ID, which means Emma Fyhr needs to keep her old smartphone – but she tries to keep it turned off in her drawer.
Partly the social aspect: when the winter darkness sets in, it becomes harder to resist the temptation to use it.
In the summer, you see each other more spontaneously. If I don't actively call my friends now, I have no contact with them, says Emma Fyhr.
If I were to check their stories, at least I know they're alive, that I have my friends.
Social media expert Johannes Gustavsson believes that the recent development where so-called "AI slag" - AI-generated content of lower quality whose purpose is to entertain and create reactions - has completely exploded on social media may have contributed to more people reflecting on their screen time.
"Social media is perhaps not so social anymore. It has almost become one-way communication, you consume content but don't engage," he says.
Tindra Fahl also thinks similarly.
"No matter how much I scroll, nothing new will come up, nothing of value. You have no memory of what you looked at yesterday, but you will scroll tomorrow too – and the day after that," she says.
