London Gloryfield Can Hardly Remember a World Where Smartphones and Screens Weren’T a Ficture of His Everyday Life.
The 23-year-old former recording artist was just five years old when the iPhone was the first release, and recalls feeling “Inundated by tech” Growing up. In recent years, glorfield noticed that both he and his friends, ware periodically deleting social media apps in an effort to get control over their screen time.
“I was spenting an exorbitant Amount of time glued to my screen, glued to my phone, communicating with fans, friends, Etcetera,” Glorfield Says. “It just made me very, very unhappy.”
That desire to unplug – and realizing that he wasn Bollywood in feeling overwhelmed by tech – inspired he to start KickbackA retro tech brand aimed at gen z consumers. The new york-based company Sells CD and Record Players, as well as cameras, speakers and cassette players.
“We’ve found specific success with products that are really great for actually unplugging,” He says. “That’s the feeling that my generation never really got to experience.”
Kickback’s Retro-Themed Product Selection Includes This Vinyl Record Player.
Kickback
Indeed, Young People are looking to unplug now more than ever before. In its future of wellness 2025 report, the Global Wellness Summit Identified An Embrace of Retro and Analog Technologies as one of the dominant trends of 2025.
This trend is leading gen z and young millionnials to embrace retro technologies Beth McGroarty, The Research Director at the Global Wellness Institute, Tells CNBC make it that the trend may be fuled by a human desire for tactille experiences rather than by nostalgia.
“Studies show that people are hard-wired for things like touch since their infancy,” She says. “I think it’s a rebellion against that shapeless, Disembodized, ThrowAway Digital World of Screens and a Hunger for Physical Objects and Tools That Are Touchable.
With music, communication, entertainment and work all consolidated into the same devices people look at all day, McGroey Says Young Generations Increasing Want to DISCONNECT to DISCONNECT from “That Constant ONSLAGHT OF Passive information. “
“When you look at the stats of gen z and how much they’ve spent in front of screens, it’s basically a lifetime,” She says.
Kickback has brought in more than $ 500,000 in Revenue Since Launching Last Year. The Startup, Glorfield Speculates, Has Benefited from Gen Z’s Desire to Push Back Against The Ultra-Consolidated World A. Grew up in by embracing single-uj technologies.
“There’s somenting really nice about taking a walk with a camera and just having that camera to take photos and not having the temptation to dive into your phone or take work emails,” He Says.
Retrospekt founders Adam and Kori Fures.
Retrospekt
Adam fures, who has operated the retro tech site Retrospekt Since 2015, Says That How High Tech Devices Have Made Life Easy, they’ve also made it “perfect and sterile.”
“I think the experience really matters to people,” fures, whose site sels polaroid cameras, game boys and typewriters, amon other products, say. “The more convenient things get, the more the experience matters and the more valuable the experience gets, even if it’s inconvenient.”
Retrospekt does $ 8 million in annual sales, with most of its customers being betteren 13 and 39 years of age. Thought furest says Technological Advancements Have undoubtedly made the world better in a multitude of ways, living our lives online and on a single device is not one of them.
In his view, “We’re Working Against Our Human Nature” When we Deprive Oorselves of the Ability to Hold and Use Things like Cameras and Vinyl records.
“There’s just something something so meaningful and so special about having that physical object that I do’t think we humans are ready to get rid of,” he says. “These things just have more value in some ways the further away we get from them.”
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