Young People Embrace Crocheting and Grandma Hobbies to Escape Screens

Emma MacTaggart was 23 years old, grinding through long hours in investment banking in Los Angeles, when she realized something uncomfortable: the rare moments she had to herself almost always ended with her staring at her phone. So she and her roommates went looking for something better to do with their hands. They found needlepoint, a craft she had briefly learned from relatives as a child but hadn't touched in years. Now 26, MacTaggart hasn't looked back.

"It was a really therapeutic way to kind of distract yourself from either work or stress, but also just do something with your hands instead of doomscrolling," she said. "We became completely obsessed."

MacTaggart's experience sits squarely within a broader shift happening across Gen Z and millennials, who are increasingly trading screens for tactile, offline hobbies. Crocheting, knitting, gardening, and needlepoint have all surged in interest among younger people, enough that the internet has given them a collective nickname: "grandma hobbies," a nod to the older demographic historically associated with hook-and-yarn crafts and garden beds.

The appeal is consistent across the hobbies. Working with your hands, stitch by stitch or row by row, demands a kind of focused attention that a phone scroll never requires. For crocheters in particular, that meditative quality is well understood. A granny square or an amigurumi project keeps your fingers busy and your mind just occupied enough to quiet the noise of a long workday. MacTaggart's needlepoint conversion reflects exactly what draws people to fiber crafts broadly: something physical, something slow, something that produces an actual finished object.

The trend extends well beyond yarn and thread. Pottery, origami, and even blacksmithing have gained traction among younger demographics, pointing to a wider appetite for making things with hands rather than consuming content with eyes. The throughline is tactility: hobbies that require presence in a way that passive screen time does not.

There is a notable irony woven into the whole movement. Much of its momentum comes from social media itself. The analog revival has been galvanized, at least in part, by its own trendiness online, where Gen Z and millennial audiences have spread the enthusiasm for offline crafts across the very platforms they are trying to step away from. Crocheting communities in particular have a visible presence on social platforms, where finished objects, project hauls, and in-progress reels have introduced the craft to audiences who might never have picked up a hook otherwise.

What those new crocheters tend to discover, much like MacTaggart did with her needlepoint, is that the hobby delivers something screens simply cannot: a tangible result, a quieted mind, and a reason to put the phone down.