By 2025, the trend of analog lifestyle will gain traction with the increased awareness around the side effects of mental illness caused by overexposure to technology. Research has revealed that there is a higher level of anxiety and cognitive deterioration, which aligns with screen time, and thus, non-digital experiences are starting to be adored once again. Opposition to AI and transhumanism is based on moral and mental uneasiness over aspects such as loss of identity and disparity. Growing neuroscience, at the same time, associates digital overstimulation with interfering with the dopaminergic system in the brain.
Analog Living Rises as a Wellness-Driven Cultural Movement
A growing number of people in 2025 are opting for low-tech or no-tech lifestyles. As a response to rising mental health concerns. The Global Wellness Institute identifies “Analog Wellness” as the year’s top lifestyle trend, with communities embracing offline activities. Such as reading physical books, hosting device-free dinners, and adopting “dumbphones” with limited functionality. This shift is backed by hard data: a 2023 Lancet Psychiatry study found that excessive screen time correlated with a 13% increase in anxiety disorders among young adults. It is not a movement to reject technology completely, but rather to make a specific disconnection.
The emergence of wellness clubs that prohibit using devices at the events, any analog hobby, such as keeping a journal or painting, and the growing fascination with slow living all indicate a social rebalance. Although digital technologies are necessary in most spheres, including AI, the analog trend opposes excessive technological influence on daily needs. This constitutes a rather unconscious form of opposition to the totalizing logic of AI. It serves society as a reminder that not everything should be automated. Presence, attention, and unmediated experience are still valuable by themselves. To the AI industry, this change might as well mark a wake-up call to create systems that affirm, instead of upending, natural patterns of human activity.
Critiques of AI Dependence and Unequal Transhumanism Expand
Together with the analog revival has been a greater criticism of the way artificial intelligence and transhumanism are transforming human identity and cognition. Transhumanism encourages implants, brain-machine connections, or even cognitive outsourcing to AI, which begs serious ethical questions. Opponents fear that unless they are regulated, these advances will only lead to an increase in disparity by making the rich experience mental and physical improvements to the exclusion of the rest.
Excessive trust in AI can diminish the intellectual choice of a person. In the last decade, most young adults have engaged in regular outsourcing of activities to smart technologies. A study published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience found that problem-solving abilities in these individuals were reduced by 20 percent. In this respect, AI does not only serve as a helper but also as a possible wither of intelligence. All the processes in which human intelligence can be summarized, such as emotional resilience, creativity, and independent thought. It may become inferior to fast and productive ones.
In addition, people are afraid that AI and neurotech obscure the borders of the person. Although promising in clinical practice, brain-computer interface experiments present apprehension of control or loss of choice. According to these critiques, the issue with the success of AI is not only on the level of performance but also regarding the level at which it upholds or devalues the human condition. The analog movement can therefore be seen as symptomatic and also defensive, a wish against losing control over the direction the world is taking by embracing the superhuman power of technology.
Disrupted Dopamine Systems Fuel Demand for Digital Restraint
According to some new scientific data, prolonged exposure to technology, specifically through AI-based applications. Leads to a change in dopamine signaling in the brain, which is the dopamine-mediated motivation and pleasure system. A 2024 Journal of Neuroscience study found that repetitive encounters with digital rewards, such as notifications. Produce desensitization, a behavioral attachment akin to addiction. In contrast, analog experiences offer slower, deeper forms of gratification. As a result, having a “natural” dopaminergic balance, unhacked by tech, may become a cultural ideal. This could influence how AI is designed: not to overstimulate, but to align with healthy cognitive patterns. The core question moving forward is whether future AI systems will support our mental balance or quietly hijack it. What’s your view?
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