加拿大大学生 Nelissa Moukoudi 今年 19 岁，她发现自从加入 Instagram 和 TikTok 后，自己的生活发生了变化。“社交生活完全崩塌了，感觉生活只有社交媒体和上学，”她说。
Nelissa Moukoudi, 19, a university student in Canada, noticed a shift once she joined Instagram and TikTok. “My social life completely plummeted and it felt like my life was only [using] social media and school,” she said.
厌倦了与自我控制作斗争，Moukoudi 下载了 Opal，这是一款在用户重新打开让人分心的应用前，强制其解答数学题的应用程序。它是庞大的“数字排毒”行业中越来越多的公司之一，这些公司通过承诺让用户远离设备来吸引用户——最好是付费用户。该行业估值近 10 亿美元，预计到 2035 年将增长至近 80 亿美元。
Tired of fighting for self-control, Moukoudi downloaded Opal, an app that forces users to solve math problems before reopening distracting apps. It is one of a growing number of companies in the sprawling digital detox industry that is enticing users – ideally paying ones – by promising to keep them off their devices. The industry is valued at nearly $1bn and is estimated to grow to nearly $8bn by 2035.
许多这类公司希望利用 Z 世代对其成长过程中所接触的设备和社交媒体平台日益增长的厌倦感。根据 4 月的一项民调，近 60% 的 Z 世代受访者认定自己有社交媒体成瘾；根据 2025 年的一项调查，三分之一的 Z 世代表示他们已经删除了一些此类应用。
Many of these companies are hoping to capitalize on gen Z’s growing weariness about the devices and social media platforms they grew up with. Nearly 60% of gen Z respondents identified as having a social media addiction in an April poll, and a third of the generation said they had deleted some of those apps, according to a 2025 survey.
这种转变也源于对科技平台日益增长的愤怒，这让一些 Z 世代感觉自己正被用于牟利。
The shift has also been driven by growing anger at tech platforms that have left some in gen Z feeling as if they are being exploited for profit.
“Z 世代基本上是被非常聪明的系统为多巴胺而‘优化’的，”39 岁的 Kenneth Schlenker 说，他是谷歌前产品营销人员，也是 Opal 的联合创始人。“但这一代人也在意识到他们不想要什么，并试图改变系统对他们的影响。”有些人则完全转向新设备。23 岁的 Kendall Schrohe 是 Attention Studio 的创始合伙人，这是一家就负责任的科技使用向家长和决策者提供咨询的公司。她说，她把智能手机换成了 Light Phone，这款手机售价 349 美元，仅包含最基本的智能手机功能。
Gen Z “was basically optimized for dopamine by very smart systems”, said Kenneth Schlenker, 39, a former product marketer at Google and co-founder of Opal. “But this generation is also realizing what they don’t want and are trying to change how the system impacts them.”Some are turning to new devices entirely. Kendall Schrohe, 23, a founding partner of the Attention Studio, a consulting firm advising parents and policymakers on responsible tech, said that she traded her smartphone for a Light Phone, which sells for $349 and includes minimal smartphone features.
“大型科技平台多年来一直在伤害人们，我们现在才刚刚感受到其影响，”施罗厄说。“我们这一代是大型科技的‘小白鼠’，我们的痛苦和对这些应用的成瘾成了它们牟利的工具。”杜克大学计算机科学专业学生施蕾雅·纳拉莫图，19岁，利用网上买的8美元近场通信（NFC）标签，自制了一款名为“Brick”的设备，用来屏蔽选定的应用程序。
“These big tech platforms have been hurting people for years, and we are just now feeling the impacts of it,” Schrohe said. “Our generation were the guinea pigs to big tech, and our suffering and addiction to these apps were profited off of.”Shreya Nallamothu, 19, a computer science student at Duke University, created her own DIY “Brick”, a device to block selected apps, using $8 near-field communication (NFC) tags that she bought online.
“每个人都应该拥有与科技的良性关系，这不应因成本高昂而望而却步，”纳拉莫图说。“科技公司的最大利益往往不在用户的最大利益之中。社交媒体已偏离了优秀技术应有的作用，人们已经注意到了这一点。”纳拉莫图在高中时期开展的研究，帮助说服伊利诺伊州参议员推进了一项近期法案，以防止父母在社交媒体上剥削儿童，并促使该州通过法律，强制父母补偿孩子。
“Everyone deserves to have a good relationship with technology, and it shouldn’t be cost-prohibitive,” Nallamothu said. “Often the tech companies’ best interests aren’t in the users’ best interests. Social media has gotten away from what good technology can do, and people have noticed.”Research that Nallamothu conducted in high school helped convince state senators in Illinois to advance a recent bill to prevent parental exploitation of children on social media and the state to pass a law forcing parents to compensate their kids.
新型以活动为中心的应用程序也试图抓住人们远离社交媒体的契机。Pie（People I Enjoy，意为“我喜欢的人”），一款突出显示本地活动的应用，包括酒吧快闪、5公里跑步和演唱会聚会等，在单月内增长了150%——用户数从7月的12万跃升至8月的30万。
New event-focused apps are also trying to capitalize on the pivot away from social media. Pie (People I Enjoy), an app highlighting local events including bar pop-ups, 5K runs and concert meetups, grew 150% in a single month – jumping from 120,000 users in July to 300,000 in August.
联合创始人纳迪亚·奥卡莫托将Pie描述为一个线下的、活跃的社交网络。
Co-founder Nadya Okamoto describes Pie as an in-person, active social network.
“我认为社交媒体就是被动地消费内容，但Pie与此不同，”冈本说。“用户正在主动建立人脉，构建自己的社交圈。”
“I think of social media as this passive consumption of content, but Pie is separate from that,” Okamoto said. “Users are actively networking and building your social circle.”
联合创始人安迪·邓恩（Andy Dunn）补充道，他还创立了男装品牌Bonobos：“产品的方方面面都旨在让你想要去和那些人建立社区联系。它给了你更多的掌控感。”使用此类数字排毒应用的价格各不相同。Opal订阅服务每年收费99.99美元，而Brick（一款手机用户点击即可锁定和解锁应用的实体方块）售价59美元。Shift是一款承诺将智能手机变成所谓“ dumbphone”（只能打电话或发短信）的应用，收取一次性150美元的费用。
Co-founder Andy Dunn, who also founded menswear brand Bonobos, added: “Everything about the product is designed to make you want to go and be in community with those people. It gives you so much more agency.”The price of using such digital detox apps can vary. An Opal subscription costs $99.99 a year, while Brick, a physical block that phone users tap to lock and unlock apps, costs $59. Shift, an app that promises to turn a smartphone into a so-called “dumbphone” that can only make calls or send texts, charges a one-time $150 payment.
这就是为什么说服Z世代数字排毒者为新应用付费可能会很棘手的原因之一。穆库迪说，她和大约95%的Opal1000万客户一样，正在使用免费版，而这些客户中有75%是Z世代。“我不会为了夺回自己的生活而为一个应用付费，”这名大学生说。
That is one reason why convincing gen Z digital detoxers to pay for a new app could be tricky. Like approximately 95% of Opal’s 10 million customers, 75% of whom are gen Z, Moukoudi said she is using the free version. “I am not going to pay for an app just to reclaim my life,” the university student said.
对有些人来说，直接删除应用就能奏效。26岁的韩崔去年删除了所有社交媒体应用，以便把更多时间花在趣味问答之夜和锻炼上。
For some, simply deleting apps does the trick. Han Choi, 26, deleted all social media apps last year to spend more of his time on trivia nights and workouts.
“人们正在拒绝那些由从我们的顺从中获利的人所建立的系统，”崔说。“末日滚动经济并不是我们需要继续参与的经济。”
“People are rejecting the systems that have been put in place by people who stand to profit off our compliance,” Choi said. “The doomscrolling economy is not one that we need to keep participating in.”