How can we claw our way out of bad screen time?

But have the juggernauts of the tech landscape correctly identified the cause of our current digital malaise, let alone the solution to it? I’m not so sure. It’s true that many of us report feeling addicted, stressed and out of control with our screen time and are in search of something different. It’s also true that well-executed in-lens display glasses like Meta’s are impressive, recalling the rush of new functionality that made the iPhone so transformational when Steve Jobs held it up on stage at MacWorld in 2007. However, many products replicate and in some cases intensify the problems that have been fermenting for years, rather than solving them. If the Financial Times crowned 2018 the year of the “techlash”, 2026 can presumably only be termed a tech-lusterfuck.

Above all, these problems are structural. Smart glasses and other such innovations might diminish the “bad screens” of smartphones, but the business models built on the attention economy and maximal data exploitation remain the same and form a fundamental part of our uneasy relationship with tech.

These are also problems of design. Starting with the Nokias and Blackberrys of the early 2000s and accelerating with the arrival of the iPhone and smartphones running Android OS, we have witnessed a great convergence, where the single-purpose objects that used to make up our lives – music players, cameras, calendars, notebooks – have been subsumed into one all-encompassing piece of hardware.

This one device to rule them all does everything, but it does no one thing particularly well. It’s a fine media player, not a great one. A fine e-book, wallet, timer, calculator, but not a great one. Worst of all, going to use any one of these tools opens up the danger of becoming distracted by another, especially any that have sent push notifications – curtailing you from performing your desired function before you’ve even started.

That is why, at the fringes of consumer technology, a movement towards device divergence has been quietly, haphazardly building for several years. This is especially true of Gen Z, which has embraced devices such as the Kodak Charmera, a digital keychain camera, and the viral homemade payment wand, recently adapted by tech company Cash App into a compact NFC-powered accessory for phone-free purchasing. This steady deconstruction of the smartphone led product design students at ECAL to imagine future versions of the device, including one designed as a modular keychain of charms at Milan Design Week 2026.

Part of the hardware resurgence is the recognition that a physical object has a power that mere software does not. Social media blocking apps and smartphone screen customisations are nice but ultimately limited in their ability to build healthy screen habits, as studies show that the mere presence of a person’s smartphone in the same room reduces their cognitive capacity. This is where “calm technology” devices like the Light Phone, Brick and reMarkable tablet come into their own, acting as a visual cue for healthier routines.

However, if brands genuinely want to unpick some of the damaging patterns of consumer technology today, their hardware choices mean little without also addressing the underlying systems of power. One of the viral trends of the year has seen DIYers welding Raspberry Pi computers into Polly Pocket shells, prompting observations that the “coolest girls you know are building cyberdecks”. Based on open-source designs, this trend is not just about aesthetics – it’s also a subversive grab at ownership and control over technology in the face of corporate rapaciousness. Even if a lot of those off-grid projects end up on-grid, the ethos is the same.

It’s difficult, but not impossible, for commercial projects to meet this challenge. US company Framework manages it with its modular, customisable and attractive computers, designed to teach customers to repair and mod their own tech. So too does Swiss company Punkt, whose pleasantly calm-looking smartphone also promises the enhanced privacy and security of an underground vault. With the shift in public mood, even big companies locked into maximising shareholder returns may have the incentive to get ahead of government regulation by really addressing safety, wellbeing and data protection, rather than tinkering at the edges.

We are entering an exciting decade. Since the iPhone launched nearly 20 years ago, the way we interact with technology has looked much the same for almost everyone on the planet, but now the door is inching open to diversity, experimentation and alternative visions from small brands and creatives. It will be chaotic. There will be flops. But for those who show their users real respect, it is a time to shine.