What are analogue hobbies, and why are people taking them up?

Analogue hobbies are the things you do with your hands and your full attention, away from a screen. The phrase has caught on because so much of ordinary life now runs through a phone, and a hobby that cannot be done on one has started to feel like a small rebellion. Below is a plain list, an honest look at whether the trend is real, and what the research says about hobbies in general.

What are analogue hobbies?

Analogue hobbies are pastimes that happen with physical things rather than on a screen. You knit with yarn, listen to a record, develop a roll of film, move pieces round a board. “Analogue” (spelt analog in American English) originally described technology that works with continuous physical signals, like a vinyl groove or a watch with hands. As a hobby label, it is informal and loose. It simply means: not digital, and usually not on your phone.

The caveat is that the line is fuzzy. A knitting pattern might come from a website, and a film photographer might scan the negatives. What matters is where your attention sits while you are doing it.

What are some analogue hobbies?

24, grouped by the kind of attention they ask for. None needs a screen once you have started.

Making with your hands

1. Knitting
2. Crochet
3. Embroidery or cross-stitch
4. Sewing and mending clothes
5. Pottery or air-dry clay
6. Woodwork or whittling
7. Sketching and drawing
8. Watercolour painting

Words and paper

9. Reading physical books
10. Journaling
11. Letter writing
12. Calligraphy or hand lettering
13. Scrapbooking and collage

Listening and looking

14. Collecting and playing vinyl records
15. Film photography
16. Learning an instrument
17. Birdwatching

Puzzles and games

18. Jigsaws
19. Crosswords and logic puzzles on paper
20. Board and card games
21. Chess

Outdoors and in the kitchen

22. Walking without headphones
23. Gardening or growing on a windowsill
24. Baking bread

A good test for whether something belongs on the list: when you stop, is there a physical thing to show for it, or a skill that is a little better than yesterday? If so, it counts. Some of these cost almost nothing (a library card, a pencil, a walk). Others, like film photography, get expensive quickly. If you are choosing with children or a household in mind, our guide to the best family board games has specific suggestions. For a single, free starting point, the unaccompanied walk is the simplest analogue habit there is.

Why are people taking up analogue hobbies?

Mostly, it seems, as a counterweight to screens, though the hard evidence for a boom is patchier than the headlines suggest. Here is what we could verify today:

• Vinyl. UK sales of vinyl LPs grew for an 18th consecutive year in 2025, up 13.3% to 7.6 million units, according to the BPI, the UK record industry body.^[1] That is a genuine, long-running trend, not a one-off.
• Film photography. In 2024 Harman Technology, which makes Ilford film in Cheshire, said it was building two new converting machines that would more than double the number of film cassettes it produces each year, its first such machines since before the millennium.^[2] That is a manufacturer investing in demand, which is a decent signal, though not a sales figure.
• Notebooks, crafts, puzzles and most other hobbies. We could not find reliable, published UK sales figures, so we are not quoting any. You will see dramatic percentages online, often from retailers’ own search data or from overseas; treat those as marketing until you can see the method.

So the honest summary is: vinyl’s rise is well documented, film looks real from the supply side, and much of the rest is a mood that is hard to measure. The reasons people give are familiar ones. They want something that does not ping, does not end in a feed, and leaves a physical result: a scarf, a print, a finished puzzle. Our collection of quotes about boredom shows this is an old wish, not a new one.

Are analogue hobbies good for you?

Hobbies in general are linked with better wellbeing, though the best evidence is about hobbies of any kind, not analogue ones specifically. In a 2023 study, researchers pooled data on 93,263 people aged 65 and over across 16 countries. Having a hobby was associated with fewer depressive symptoms and with higher self-reported health, happiness and life satisfaction, and further analysis suggested the hobby tended to come first.^[3]

The caveats matter. It was an observational study, so it shows an association rather than proof that hobbies cause better mental health. It was about older adults. And the study did not compare screen-based with screen-free hobbies. This is general information, not medical advice.

What we can say more modestly is that analogue hobbies tend to share a few features that make them easy to sink into: they are slow, they have a clear next step, and they do not interrupt you. That is a good recipe for the absorbed, unhurried attention many of us feel we have lost. They also come with natural stopping points: the end of a row, a chapter, a side of a record. A feed has none.

What is the difference between active and passive hobbies?

Active hobbies ask you to do something; passive ones mostly ask you to take something in. Knitting, chess, gardening and learning the guitar are active: you practise, decide and get better. Watching, listening in the background and scrolling are passive. Neither is wrong. But most analogue hobbies sit firmly on the active side, and that is part of why they feel restorative rather than draining. You come away having made or learned something, not just having filled an hour.

How do you start an analogue hobby?

Start small, cheap and visible. Five steps that help:

1. Pick one, not five. Choose the hobby that sounds most fun, not most improving.
2. Borrow before you buy. Libraries, friends and charity shops are full of knitting needles, jigsaws and old cameras.
3. Leave it out. A half-finished jigsaw on the table invites you back. A kit in a cupboard does not.
4. Give it a slot. Ten minutes after dinner, or the first hour of Sunday, is enough to begin.
5. Expect to be bad at it. Being a beginner is part of the pleasure, and it is very hard to be a beginner while checking your phone.

If you want a gentle structure for noticing where your spare time goes, and what you would rather do with it, The Boredom Diary is a small paper companion for exactly that.