Grandma is always right: Slow Hobbies Are Back

Picture: Knitting Party in London. Copyright : Instagram/ @finisterre

By Gregory Wagner

Why Gen Z is trading screens for yarn, binoculars and jigsaw puzzles — and  what it says about us

Crocheting a Sophie Scarf, solving jigsaw puzzles in the library or birdwatching in the Jardin  Botanique. Hobbies that were once considered the pastime of our grandmothers and  grandfathers are now very much back en vogue among our generational cohort, the Gen Z. 

Enter the knitting circle 

On university campuses and beyond, something is quietly blossoming between lectures and  late nights. Students knit in between study sessions, press flowers between the pages of their  notebooks, solve crosswords and go visit pottery classes. The hashtag #knittok has more than  1 billion views on TikTok. Sales figures for jigsaw puzzles have almost doubled in the years  following the pandemic. Birdwatching, long the butt of every joke about pensioners, is seeing  its fastest growth among under-30-year-olds. And of the 68 New York Times crossword  constructors who have made their debuts as teenagers, almost half have been from the Gen Z.

Whatever you call it, be it grannycore, cottagecore or simply a shift in mood, the trend goes  far beyond those terms. For many young people, it represents a genuine reorientation of their  leisure activities. 

At first glance, the reasons for it are not hard to find. Nights out are expensive. The cost-of living crisis is biting. And a full day of lectures and studying followed by hours of  doomscrolling can easily leave you exhausted. Online, the voices explaining the switch to  slower hobbies are remarkably consistent. “My brain finally goes quiet,” is a phrase that  appears repeatedly. “At the end of the week I have a thing I can hold “, “I can put it on my  wall” or “It doesn’t need charging”. The hunger being described is not simply for relaxation.  According to the Guardian, slow hobbies offer a counterweight, they are affordable, screen free and require physical skills. 

Your brain on crochet 

Research supports what young people are explaining online. A 2024 study published in  Frontiers in Public Health analysed data from over 7,000 adults and found that engaging in  arts and crafts significantly predicted increased life satisfaction and higher levels of  happiness. The most striking finding was the scale of the effect: the impact of crafting on  participants’ sense that their life was worthwhile was bigger than the impact of being in  employment. “Not only does crafting give us a sense of achievement,” study director, Dr.  Keyes, observed, “it is also a meaningful route to self-expression. This is not always the case  with employment.” 

The neurological picture is equally compelling. Repetitive craft activities trigger the release of  serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin, the same reward activated by meditation or other physical  activities. An American study found that people who knit, quilt or read regularly report  between 30 and 50 percent fewer cognitive difficulties, with researchers suggesting that such  activities actively strengthen neural connections in the brain. And unlike a phone-based  puzzle app, a physical object offers something screens structurally cannot: visible, cumulative  evidence that you did something. You can hold it. You can give it away. It was real before  you picked it up and it remains real after you put it down. 

Psychologists have a word for the deeper pull these hobbies exert. Anemoia describes the  nostalgia one feels for a time never actually lived through. A longing, in an era of flashy  screens and endless apps, for the satisfying simplicity of making something with your hands.  The Economist has noted the phenomenon with a certain wryness and commented that  younger people are now looking with genuine fondness at such reliably unglamorous  activities as darning a pair of old socks. 

Beyond nostalgia 

But to call this nostalgia is to underestimate it. A Pew Research survey in 2024 found that  almost half of American teenagers now view social media’s effects as mostly negative and  44% have cut back their social media use. People who start crocheting or head to the park  with binoculars are not simply yearning for their grandparents’ world. It is more an active,  considered choice about how to spend your leisure time. In an age when artificial intelligence  

can produce an image, a song or an essay in seconds, making something slowly and  imperfectly by hand suddenly can feel like a rebellious act. The uneven stitch, the jigsaw  piece found after twenty minutes of searching, these are not failures. Rather they are  increasingly the point.

Against the backdrop of a well-documented youth mental health crisis, these slow hobbies are  more than a passing aesthetic or a quirky counterculture. They are a response to an attention  economy that has consistently demanded that young people produce, consume, scroll and  perform and has offered very little stillness in return. The knitting club, the puzzle on the  library table, the birdwatching in the Jardin Botanique: none of these are a retreat from  modern life. They are a negotiation with it, conducted one careful stitch, one turned page, one  spotted bird at a time. 

So next time you’re feeling stressed, instead of doomscrolling on your phone, why not start  with a Sophie Scarf or meet at the Jigsaw Puzzle in the library? Not only will it help you  relax, but it will also bring joy to the lucky participant.