Last December, 17-year-old Navya Chitlur had only one thing on her Christmas list: a portable CD player. She’d been collecting CDs from her favorite artists for the last few months — but now she wanted to go all in and actually listen to them. 

“It feels like a whole different experience listening to CDs,” said Chitlur, a senior at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont. 

A music aficionado, Chitlur grew up listening to music on Spotify, but had recently fallen in love with the way she can hold a CD in her hand or watch a vinyl record spin as it plays music. “It feels like you’re connecting with a piece way more than if you were just listening to it on your phone,” Chitlur said. 

Some young people say they’re beginning to shift away from their phones and toward physical media like vinyls, CDs, books and analog hobbies, largely as a result of screen fatigue. In a survey of 120 Bay Area high schoolers who responded on Mosaic’s Instagram, 57% reported making a conscious effort to use more physical media. 

Navya Chitlur, 17, in Fremont, holds one of her favorite CDs, a gift from a classmate who burned it for her. (Padma Balaji/Mosaic via Bay City News)

Although evidence of a shift is largely anecdotal, some data suggest interest in physical media is on the rise. In January, searches for “analog” increased almost 80% over the last six months, according to Google Trends. 

Michael Boado, co-founder of the vinyl record store Needle to the Groove and a part-time DJ, says he’s seen an influx of young people coming to the store, which has locations in San Jose and Fremont. Around the shop, teenagers rifle through records as Boado slides a new record onto his turntable, changing the song playing in the background.

“It’s nice to have something physical as opposed to just streaming,” Boado said. “I feel like younger folks are digging having a collection as opposed to having playlists on Spotify.”

Michael Boado, general manager and co-founder of Needle to the Groove, adjusts his DJ turntable to play a new song. Boado, also a part-time DJ known as DJ Basura, says he’s seen an influx of young people coming into both the store’s San Jose and Fremont locations. (Padma Balaji/Mosaic via Bay City News)

Zaki Hasan, a film professor at San Jose State University, points to screen fatigue as a driving factor for the shift. 

“We’re in this age of convergence where our phone is the vector for all the media you consume — whether it’s TV or movies or music or newspapers,” Hasan said. “I think it starts leaving kind of a gaping hole inside of you a little bit because weirdly, it offers us everything, yet it leaves us feeling empty.” 

Customers sift through records at Needle to the Groove in Fremont on March 9, 2026. Teenagers browse vinyl records and CDs at a record store as interest in physical media grows among young people seeking alternatives to streaming and screen time. (Padma Balaji/Mosaic via Bay City News)

In the Mosaic survey, almost 70% of respondents reported making a conscious effort to reduce their phone use in the last three months.

“I just felt guilty about having a high screen time,” said Raul Peñaloza, a junior at Newark Memorial High School.

He’s recently started picking up copies of his local newspaper, The Tri-City Voice. To Peñaloza, holding a physical paper in his hand “is just a different vibe.”

Gaura Amarnani, a junior at Mission San Jose High School, points to the COVID-19 pandemic for creating a dependency on screens. “Every time we were bored, rather than going outside, it became a new normal to just get on your phone,” Amarnani said. 

Every single one of us is just plugged into an algorithm. Something as simple as curating for yourself, what you see, what you listen to, what you own — that exercises agency. It’s reclaiming something that I don’t think people even realized had been taken away from them Zaki Hasan, San Jose State University film professor

He’s recently tried to cut down on screen time and revive his love of reading after noticing the effects of a casual phone addiction. “I felt like I was disconnected from a part of my life, which is that I used to be into reading as a kid,” Amarnani said. 

Hasan says physical media gives young people a way to regain control over their lives.

“Every single one of us is just plugged into an algorithm,” Hasan said. “I think something as simple as curating for yourself what you see, what you listen to, what you own — that exercises agency. It’s reclaiming something that I don’t think people even realized had been taken away from them.”

Navya Chitlur, 17, in Fremont slides a CD into her portable CD player. She says listening to music on CDs, rather than on Spotify, has given her the freedom to detach from her phone. (Padma Balaji/Mosaic via Bay City News)

Every time Chitlur slides her favorite CD — usually “The Bends” by Radiohead — into her player, listens to it click close, and soaks up the music, she says she feels like she’s rebelling against technology.

“It feels like a way to kind of slow down and reconnect with what actually matters,” Chitlur said. 

Padma Balaji is a member of the Class of 2026 at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont. 

Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic, an independent journalism training program for high school and college students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.