A friend mentioned recently that she hadn't opened Instagram in two months. Not as a declaration or a digital detox challenge—she just noticed one day that the app was still on her phone but she'd stopped reaching for it.

"I don't know when it happened," she said. "I just... stopped."

I'm seeing this more often. People quietly stepping away from platforms that used to command hours of their attention. No announcements. No dramatic deletions. Just a slow drift away from systems designed to keep them engaged. These are what you might call attention economy refugees—people who've quietly opted out of the engagement optimization machine. Not because they read an article or followed a productivity guru, but because something in them finally said enough.

What's interesting is how undramatic these departures are. No one's burning their iPhone or writing manifestos about Big Tech. They're just... using their phones differently. These aren't people rejecting technology. They're people who've realized that most of what we call "connectivity" is actually just noise dressed up as connection. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

What Changed

Something shifted in how people think about the tools on their phones. For years, the narrative was: more features, more options, more connectivity. Apps competed to become your everything—your social life, your news source, your entertainment, your productivity system.

But that promise wore thin. The all-in-one apps didn't make life simpler; they made it more fragmented. The feeds that promised to keep you informed mostly kept you anxious. The tools that claimed to boost productivity often just generated more noise.

People started noticing patterns:

  • Opening an app "just to check" and losing twenty minutes to an algorithmic feed
  • Feeling worse after scrolling, not better
  • Realizing that constant connectivity feels less like connection and more like surveillance
  • Discovering that the apps that demand the most attention often provide the least value

The people stepping away aren't becoming digital hermits. They're just recalibrating what they want from their tools.

There's a growing appreciation for software that helps you do something and then stops. Not apps that pull you back in with notifications and badges and "you might also like" suggestions, but tools that respect the boundary between useful and invasive.

When we built apps like FocusAnchor, the idea was simple: show one task, help you focus on it, then get out of your way. No infinite lists. No engagement metrics. Just: here's the thing, now do the thing, now you're done.

That's not revolutionary. It's just... respectful.

Constraint as Clarity

There's also a shift in how people think about limitations. For years, the selling point was always more—more storage, more features, more options.

But limits can be liberating. When a tool forces you to work within boundaries, it removes the paralysis of infinite choice. You're not drowning in possibilities; you're working within a clear frame.

This might be why analog tools have seen a resurgence. Physical notebooks have inherent constraints—limited pages, one thing at a time, no undo button. Those constraints don't feel limiting; they feel clarifying.

People are also tired of privacy being something you have to achieve through complex settings and constant vigilance. The default state for most apps is maximum data collection, with privacy as an optional feature buried in submenus. What people want now is simpler: privacy as the starting point, not the end goal. Data stays on your device. No tracking. No analytics. No murky "partnerships" with third parties.

Here's the uncomfortable reality: building tools for people who want to use them less is terrible business strategy. The entire growth playbook for apps depends on maximizing engagement. Daily active users, session length, retention metrics—these are the numbers that matter to investors and platforms. Apps that help you disengage are swimming against the current.

But there's something we've noticed: people who find tools that genuinely respect them tend to stick around. Not because the app gamified loyalty, but because it actually served them. They recommend it to others facing similar problems. They provide thoughtful feedback. They're willing to pay because they understand what's being offered isn't just features—it's restraint.

This isn't to say social media is collapsing. Nor that the hay-day of AI-powered engagement systems are over. The attention economy isn't going anywhere.

But parallel to all of that, something quieter is happening. More people are noticing what's being done with their attention. They recognize engineered addiction when they see it. They're starting to ask whether their screen time aligns with their actual values. These aren't digital purists or technology skeptics. They're just people who want their tools to serve them rather than capture them.

Who We're Building For

If you've read this far, you might recognize yourself in these descriptions. Or maybe you're considering whether this resonates with your own relationship with technology.

We can't promise our apps will solve everything. But we can promise they're built with a specific kind of person in mind: someone who values their attention as finite, their privacy as default, and their time as genuinely valuable.

That's a small audience. It might always be a small audience. But it's the one we're building for.

If this resonates with you, you're not alone. There are more of us quietly stepping away than you might think. We're just not making noise about it.