09/03/2026
Phone-free experiences are on the rise.
Artists are asking fans to put their phones away during shows. Restaurants and bars are creating phone-free spaces. Now brand activations are getting in on it too.
At Coachella this year, Pinterest asked guests to lock away their phones before entering its experience. That’s all the more interesting coming from a company whose business model depends on keeping people on screens.
Instead of screens and QR codes, guests found charms, postcards, stickers and physical keepsakes.
It makes sense. Pinterest says Gen Z searches for “analog aesthetic” are up 260%, while searches for “dumb phones” are up 150%. People aren’t rejecting technology altogether. They’re starting to value experiences that give them a reason to step away from it.
For brands, that creates an interesting tradeoff.
Pinterest gave up much of the content guests might have created inside. In return, people actually stayed in the moment.
And ironically, making the experience phone-free became part of the story. It gave people something to talk about once they had their phones back.
For years, we’ve designed experiences around one question:
Will people share this?
Maybe we should also be asking:
Will people be present enough to remember it?
