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‘Digital detox’ is now a booming business but it won’t do much to reduce your screen time
Switching off can be surprisingly expensive. Much like the smoking cessation boom of the 1990s, the digital detox business – spanning hardware, apps, telecoms, workplace wellness providers, digital “wellbeing suites” and tourism – is now a global industry in its own right.
People are increasingly willing to pay to escape the technology they feel trapped by. The global digital detox market is currently valued at around US$2.7 billion (£2bn), and forecast to double in size by 2033.
Hardware manufacturers such as Light Phone, Punkt, Wisephone and Nokia sell minimalist “ dumb phones” at premium prices, while subscription-based website blockers such as Freedom, Forest, Offtime and RescueTime have turned restraint into a lucrative revenue stream.
Wellness tourism operators have capitalised too: tech-free travel company Unplugged recently expanded to 45 phone-free cabins across the UK and Spain, marketing disconnection as a high-value experience.
However, my new research, with colleagues at Lancaster University, suggests this commercialised form of abstinence rarely extinguishes digital cravings – instead merely acting as a temporary pause.
We carried out a 12-month netnography focusing on the NoSurf Reddit community of people interested in increasing their productivity, plus 21 in-depth interviews (conducted remotely) with participants living in different countries. We found that rather than actively confronting their habits, participants often reported outsourcing self-discipline to blocker apps, timed lockboxes and minimalist phones.
Joan*, a NoSurf participant, explained how she relies on app-blocking software not to bolster her self-control, but to negate the need for it entirely. “To me, it's less about using willpower, which is a precious resource … and more about removing the need to exert willpower in the first place.”
Philosopher Slavoj Žižek defines this kind of behaviour – delegating the work of self-regulation to a market product – as “interpassivity”. This produces what he calls “false activity”: people thinking they are addressing a problem by engaging with consumer solutions that actually leave their underlying patterns unchanged.
Several of our detoxing participants described a cycle in which each relapse prompted them to try yet another tool, entrenching their dependency on the commercial ecosystem. Sophia, on the other hand, just wished for a return to “dumb phones with the full keyboard again, like they had in 2008”, adding: “I would use one of those for the rest of my life if I could.”
Individualised digital detox interventions have been found to produce mixed and often short-lived effects. Participants in our study described short breaks in which they reduced activity briefly before resuming familiar patterns.
Many users engaged in what sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls “oases of deceleration” – temporary slowdowns intended not to quit but recover from overload. Like a pitstop, the digital detox offered them momentary relief while ultimately enabling a swift return to screens, often at similar or higher levels of engagement than before.
While the commercialisation of digital detox is often portrayed as a western trend, the Asia-Pacific region is the world's fastest-growing market for these goods and services. But in Asia, we also see some examples of community- or country-level, non-commercial responses to the problem of digital overload.
In central Japan, Toyoake has introduced the country's first city-wide guidance on smartphone use. Families are encouraged to set shared rules, including children stopping device use after 9pm. This reframes digital restraint as a community practice, not a test of individual willpower.
In western India, the 15,000 residents of Vadgaon are asked to practise a nightly, 90-minute digital switch-off. Phones and TVs go dark at 7pm, after which many of the villagers gather outdoors. What began during the pandemic is now a ritual that shows healthy tech habits can be easier together than alone.
And in August 2025, South Korea – one of the world's most connected countries – passed a new law banning smartphone use in school classrooms from next March, adding to the countries around the world with such a rule. A similar policy in the Netherlands was found to have improved focus among students.
The commercial detox industry thrives because personal solutions are easy to sell, while systemic ones are much harder to implement. In other areas ranging from gambling addiction to obesity, policies often focus on personal behaviour such as self-regulation or individual choice, rather than addressing the structural forces and powerful lobbies that can perpetuate harm.
To address the problem of digital overload, I believe tech firms need to move beyond cosmetic “digital wellbeing” features that merely snooze distractions, and take proper responsibility for the smartphone technologies that offer coercive engagement by default. Governments, meanwhile, can learn from initiatives in Asia and elsewhere that pair communal support with enforced rules around digital restraint.
At the same time, if you're considering a digital detox yourself, here are some suggestions for how to reduce the chances of getting caught in a commercial detox loop.
1. Don't delegate your agency
Be wary of tools that promise to do the work for you. While you may think you're solving the problem this way, your underlying habits are likely to remain unchanged.
2. Beware content rebound
We found that digital detoxers often seek real experiences like going outdoors and “touching grass” – but then feel pulled to translate them back into posts, photos and updates.
3. Seek solidarity, not products
Like the villagers of Vadgaon, try to align your disconnection with other people's. It's harder to scroll when everyone else has agreed to stop.
4. Reclaim boredom
We often detox to be more “productive” – but try embracing boredom instead. As the philosopher Martin Heidegger has noted, profound boredom is a space where reflection becomes possible. And that can be very useful indeed.
*Names of research participants have been changed to protect their privacy.
Quynh Hoang is Lecturer in Marketing and Consumption, Department of Marketing and Strategy, University of Leicester.
This article was first published on The Conversation.
Source: Scroll
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