Gen Z – broadly defined as people born between 1997 and 2012 – is the first generation to have grown up entirely in the digital age. Smartphones, streaming services, and social media have been constants since childhood. So the pivot toward slow, tactile, analog pursuits is not a nostalgic impulse (they have no memory of these hobbies the first time around). Something else is driving it, and the research offers a fairly clear picture.
A common thread in why young people have tried these classic pastimes is a desire to cope with growing anxiety. According to reporting in the New York Post, Generation Z has the lowest levels of social fitness, and growing up online with reduced face-to-face interaction has contributed to greater feelings of loneliness and isolation. What these retro hobbies offer – almost without exception – is a counterweight to that: presence, purpose, and often, other people.
What Boomer Hobbies Gen Z Is Picking Up Again
These are not fringe interests confined to a handful of aesthetic-conscious Gen Z-ers on niche corners of the internet. YPulse’s Hobbies and Passions report found that nearly all of Gen Z has at least one hobby – 87 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds and 92 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds. The 12 activities below represent the specific boomer-era pursuits that have crossed over most decisively into younger hands.
1. Vinyl Records
No list of retro hobbies making a comeback with younger generations would be complete without the unmistakable crackle of a needle hitting a groove. The US music industry sold 43.6 million vinyl records in 2024, marking the 18th consecutive year of growth, driven largely by Gen Z’s interest in analog experiences, aesthetic appeal, and direct artist support. By 2024, vinyl music sales reached $1.4 billion on 43.6 million units, comfortably outpacing CDs at $541 million on 33 million units.
Part of the appeal is physical in a way that a playlist simply cannot replicate. Unlike digital audio files, vinyl LP albums offer a physical touchpoint. Handling large-format packaging decorated with artwork is an experience that MP3 files cannot provide, and custom vinyl sleeves are often covered with lyrics and backstories about the artist. Even the ritual of placing the needle on the record creates a sense of intimacy and engagement completely absent from music streaming. Major artists have taken notice. When Taylor Swift drops an album, the vinyl version sells out instantly. As of mid-2024, the top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 had an average of 7 variants per album – a direct response to a collector culture that young buyers are enthusiastically driving.
2. Board Games and Puzzles
Saturday afternoons with Monopoly spread across the kitchen table used to be a boomer staple. Now it is showing up in college dorms. An article in Pittwire, the newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh, found that the popularity of board games had skyrocketed among college students – so much so that the trend rivaled the rise of social media and smartphones. That is a remarkable comparison, and one that speaks to how deeply young people are craving face-to-face interaction.
Puzzles and board games are also excellent for protecting against cognitive aging, as they challenge memory, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving skills in a low-stakes, enjoyable format. The social dimension is equally significant. Knitting circles, community gardens, and board game cafes are creating spaces for genuine, in-person connection, bridging generational gaps. For a generation that often cites loneliness as one of its defining struggles, sitting around a table and arguing about whether someone cheated at Catan is, in its own way, medicine.
3. Birdwatching
This one might raise an eyebrow or two, but the data is real. Social media platforms now host active communities for young “birders” to post images and videos of their sightings, and young people are organizing group hikes specifically to spot birds. Birdwatching – or “birding,” as younger practitioners tend to call it – has found a natural home on Instagram and iNaturalist, where spotting a rare species carries genuine social currency.
The hobby itself requires almost no money to start. A decent pair of binoculars, a free identification app, and a nearby park are all it takes. What it does demand is patience and attention – two things that are in short supply in the algorithmically accelerated world most Gen Z-ers inhabit daily. That contrast seems to be exactly the point.
4. Homesteading and Self-Sufficient Living
Growing your own food, canning produce, raising backyard chickens – these were considered quaint throwbacks a decade ago. Now they read as aspirational. Home canning – the practice of preserving fruits and vegetables in jars – was a staple task for previous generations and is being embraced once again by those interested in reducing waste and eating more sustainably. The connection to food sovereignty (knowing exactly where your food comes from and having some control over it) resonates strongly with a generation that has grown up acutely aware of supply chain fragility and environmental pressure.
Today’s younger generations are rediscovering this connection to the earth with impressive enthusiasm. Urban gardening, container growing, and even indoor herb gardens have become trendy ways to combat rising food costs and reconnect with where meals actually come from. The homesteading impulse is not about rejecting modernity – it is about reclaiming a sense of agency that screen-based life tends to erode.
5. Fishing
As reported by The Times, young people filing for fishing licenses has increased notably, with teens claiming the sport was great for managing the effects of anxiety. Ledgerwood himself captured the appeal with characteristic bluntness, writing that “watching a bobber dance on the surface still beats doomscrolling any day.”
Fishing requires you to be somewhere specific, doing one thing, without a reliable Wi-Fi connection. For many young people, that is not a drawback – it is the entire point. The combination of outdoor exposure, quiet focus, and the occasional adrenaline spike of an actual catch makes it a genuinely rewarding analog experience. It also tends to be intergenerational by nature: fishing trips with a grandparent remain one of the more reliably documented pathways into the hobby.
6. Journaling
Paper diaries were a boomer staple – Ledgerwood recalls filling pages with “teenage worries, young love, and big dreams.” Gen Z has found its own version of the same release, though often with considerably more aesthetic attention to the physical notebook itself. According to survey data, Gen Z credits the reason for this hobby shift as simply fun (23.81 percent), followed by mental health (22.06 percent), with 16 percent noticing improved mental health and lowered stress from slow-paced hobbies.
Journaling sits at the intersection of several things Gen Z is seeking at once: a break from screens, a private space, and a tool for emotional processing. There is also a growing TikTok and YouTube community built entirely around “journal with me” content – which is a slightly paradoxical but genuinely functional way that social media is steering young people back toward analog habits.
7. Knitting and Crocheting
Walk through any coffee shop or college campus and you will spot it more often than you might expect: someone in their early twenties, yarn in hand, working on something that looks like a sweater or a very ambitious dishcloth. The rhythmic nature of crafts like knitting and crochet has been shown to lower heart rate and blood pressure, with effects similar to meditation. That is not a wellness-influencer claim – it is backed by a growing body of research on repetitive, tactile activity and the parasympathetic nervous system.
A May 2025 survey of 1,600 Americans ages 18 to 28 found that the majority had at least one “grandma hobby,” which they had turned to as a way to “sharpen attention, soften anxiety, and restore a sense of place in the real world.” Knitting ranked prominently on that list. The craft is also deeply portable, cheap to start, and produces a tangible result – a sweater, a scarf, a pair of socks – which matters in a life where most effort disappears into the void of a group chat.
8. From-Scratch Baking
There is a clear distinction – one that Ledgerwood makes a point of underlining – between ripping open a box mix and actually baking something. The latter involves yeast, timing, patience, and a healthy tolerance for flour clouds. During the COVID-19 pandemic, baking was one of the activities people embraced as a way to navigate a challenging and uncertain time. For many Gen Z-ers, that pandemic introduction became a lasting habit.
The rise of food culture and cooking shows has inspired Gen Z to take up cooking and baking as hobbies, with this generation viewing the kitchen as a space for creativity and self-expression. Cooking and baking allow them to explore culinary skills, develop new techniques, and share their creations on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Making a sourdough loaf from a starter you have been maintaining for three weeks is, by any fair measure, an act of genuine craft. The bread is almost a side benefit.
9. Reading Physical Books
Digital convenience promised to make physical media obsolete, yet bookstores and record shops are thriving again. Young people are choosing paperbacks over e-readers and vinyl over streaming, often paying premium prices for the privilege. The #BookTok community on TikTok – which has driven millions of book sales – is a useful example of how Gen Z uses digital platforms to funnel itself toward analog experiences. People discover a recommendation online, then go buy a physical copy. The screen leads to the shelf.
The tangible connection that physical formats provide seems to be the driving force. There is something about turning actual pages or dropping a needle on a record that engages multiple senses in ways that digital consumption cannot replicate. Reading also allows you to keep up with the riddles and brain teasers that sharpen pattern recognition in ways that passive scrolling simply does not.
10. Gardening
There has been a renewed love for gardening across younger generations, from urban settings to indoor herb gardens, and this boomer hobby is blooming again. Studies have directly linked gardening to lower cortisol levels and improved mood, with the physical activity, exposure to nature, and patience required to tend to plants offering both mental and physical rewards. For city dwellers who cannot access a backyard plot, balcony container gardens and community allotments have filled the gap. The result is the same: something green, alive, and responding to care.
Pinterest’s 2025 Summer Trend Report found that teens are searching for summer crafts, book clubs, and painting ideas, with gardening consistently surfacing alongside those categories. Growing something – watching a seed become food – offers a feedback loop that most modern activities simply lack. The payoff is slow, specific, and real.
11. Letter Writing and Pen Pals
Letter writing is coming back, complete with pen pal clubs, calligraphy workshops, and even snail mail subscription boxes. There is a unique intimacy to a handwritten note – something Gen Z is beginning to explore through pen pal communities and journaling trends. In a world where a message can be sent and read in under three seconds, the deliberate slowness of writing, addressing, stamping, and mailing something has become a form of radical attention. Getting a handwritten envelope in return feels, by contrast, like an event.
Pen pal services aimed at Gen Z have multiplied noticeably in recent years. Apps like Slowly pair users across the globe, but with a twist: messages take as long to arrive as a real letter would, based on geographic distance. The format reintroduces patience into communication. That is not a small thing for a generation that has grown up with instant everything.
12. Film Photography
Ask anyone under 25 why they shoot film and they will likely say something like “it just feels more real.” Shooting on film forces you to slow down, compose, and commit. Every click counts. Gen Z sees film photography as freedom from perfectionism rather than a limitation – a meaningful reframe in a culture defined by filters, editing apps, and the pressure to post only the best version of everything.
Film cameras – particularly 35mm point-and-shoots from the 1980s and 1990s – have surged in value at thrift stores and on eBay precisely because young people are seeking them out. The format offers something Instagram cannot: the surprise of not knowing how a shot turned out until you hold the print in your hands. That uncertainty, which used to be considered a disadvantage, is now part of the appeal. These intergenerational hobbies connect a new generation not just to a technique, but to a way of seeing.
Why Gen Z Is Drawn to Traditional Boomer Hobbies
Gen Z – digital natives who grew up swiping before they could write – are embracing tactile, slow-burn pastimes that used to be considered “so boomer.” The psychological logic is sound: when everything else in your world is instant, frictionless, and optimized, activities that require patience, physical engagement, and real-world presence become genuinely appealing alternatives.
A 2024 Anglia Ruskin University study found that creative crafts ranked higher than paid work in generating life satisfaction. Engaging in hobbies like knitting, crocheting, and woodworking can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, lower stress levels, and increase feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, offering cognitive benefits that can delay age-related decline and dementia. These are not trivial outcomes. The case for slow hobbies is not just cultural – it is physiological.
There is also a social dimension that deserves more attention. Many of today’s 20-somethings hit their formative years during the pandemic. Their social lives were interrupted. Their sense of stability never quite landed. Hobbies that require showing up in person – fishing with a friend, attending a knitting circle, gathering around a board game – rebuild exactly the kind of low-pressure, face-to-face connection that years of lockdowns and screen-first socializing quietly eroded.
While it might seem surprising to see these boomer hobbies making a comeback, it also makes sense. Our world is fast-paced and digitally driven, which often leaves people craving simplicity, authenticity, and connection – elements these hobbies inherently offer. Ledgerwood, who writes for Global English Editing’s lifestyle section, frames it from the other direction: these activities were never uncool. They just got temporarily overshadowed.
What the Most Popular Retro Hobbies Have in Common
Every activity on this list shares a few core characteristics. Each one produces something – a loaf of bread, a completed puzzle, a photograph, a finished scarf, a jar of jam. Each one demands presence rather than passive consumption. And each one connects you, in some form, to other people: either directly (fishing trips, board game nights, community gardens) or indirectly (pen pals, birding groups, knitting circles).
These are not just hobbies – they are practices that build patience, creativity, and genuine human connection. They remind us that the old ways endure because they fulfill fundamental human needs that technology can enhance but never fully replace. That observation holds as true for a 19-year-old in a city apartment as it did for a teenager in 1972 with a fishing rod and a Saturday to burn.
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What This Means for Your Family
If you have teenagers or young adults in your orbit who seem restless, anxious, or chronically glued to their phones, this trend offers something concrete to work with. These hobbies are not a curriculum to impose – they are an invitation to extend. Leave a jigsaw puzzle open on the table. Suggest a fishing trip. Plant something together. Buy a used turntable at a flea market and see what happens.
The research is consistent on one point: the revival of these hobbies is not just about aesthetics, but about fostering genuine in-person connections through activities like knitting circles, community gardens, and board game cafes, bridging generational gaps and promoting a slower, more mindful pace of life. The generational gap that everyone jokes about – boomers and Gen Z finding nothing in common – turns out to have a fairly elegant solution. Hand someone a fishing rod. Sit across a board game from them. Let a record play all the way through. These 12 hobbies boomers love that Gen Z is trying are not just a quirky trend. They are a reminder that some things were worth doing all along, and the best proof of that is watching an entirely new generation figure it out for themselves.
Disclaimer: This article was created with AI assistance and edited by a human for accuracy and clarity.