Jamie Chung is leaning hard into offline living when it comes to her twin boys, and the actress is part of a much larger cultural shift reshaping how families think about childhood in 2026.
Chung, who shares her sons, born in October 2021, with husband Bryan Greenberg, told People magazine she is fully on board with the analog movement as a guiding philosophy for raising her kids.
The timing could not be more resonant. Across the country, parents are deliberately pulling back from the constant hum of screens, streaming queues, and digital noise, choosing instead to prioritize tactile, offline experiences for their children.
What was once a fringe lifestyle choice has become one of the most talked-about parenting trends heading into the second half of 2026, with families swapping apps for board games, endless streaming for VHS movie nights, and smartphones for landlines or even simple tin can phones.
What The Analog Movement Actually Means For Families
For most parents, going analog is not about rejecting every piece of technology or retreating into nostalgia. It is about something more intentional: creating space for the kinds of experiences, free play, boredom, real conversation, physical problem solving, that screens tend to crowd out.
Speaking to Nashville Parent, Nicole Dreiske, a media educator and author of The Upside of Digital Devices, put it plainly. “Parents don’t need to eliminate screens entirely, but they benefit from intentionally balancing digital engagement with real-life, tactile experiences that support creativity, connection, and resilience — what many families today are rediscovering as analog living.”
The practical applications range from small to sweeping. Some families designate screen free zones in bedrooms or at the dinner table. Others commit to one or two evenings a week where puzzles, drawing, or shared reading replace devices entirely.
The 2025 surge in popularity of the Tin Can phone, a kid friendly device designed to mimic the feel of an old landline, became a cultural flashpoint, signaling just how hungry parents are for simpler forms of connection.
Why Limits Are The Point
Child development experts argue that the analog push is really about something deeper than screen time numbers: it is about teaching children to tolerate edges, endings, and discomfort.
Dr. Becky Kennedy, author of the bestselling Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, frames the appeal of offline life in terms of natural stopping points.
“Kids become mentally strong when they learn to move through hard moments with support — not when those moments are erased, avoided, or handled for them,” Kennedy told Nashville Parent.
The logic is straightforward. Digital environments are engineered to be endless — one more scroll, one more level, one more autoplay video.
Analog activities, by contrast, have built-in conclusions. A puzzle gets finished. A board game produces a winner. A chapter ends.
Those natural boundaries, experts say, quietly build emotional regulation, frustration tolerance, and confidence in children who are otherwise growing up in a world designed to never stop.
The Data Complicates The Story
Here is where the picture gets more nuanced. Even as the analog movement gains momentum, new research suggests that technology, when thoughtfully shared between partners, can actually make parents more present, not less.
Nanit’s Second Annual State of Modern Parenthood Report, based on a survey of more than 1,600 parents of newborns, infants, and toddlers, found that communication between partners improved for close to half of respondents when they used shared parenting tools.
More than 56 percent say they share real-time data, sleep patterns, developmental milestones, giving both caregivers equal access to the same information.
That shared visibility, the report argues, chips away at the “primary parent” dynamic, where one partner becomes the default keeper of all child related knowledge while the other is left guessing.
About 60 percent of dads in the survey said parenting technology helps them share responsibilities more equally, and nearly 70 percent of moms said real-time access allows them to step back and trust their partner more.
Anushka Salinas, CEO of Nanit, framed the finding as a challenge to the idea that unplugging is always the answer. “If we want better outcomes for children, we have to start by supporting the people raising them,” Salinas said in the company’s press release.
“Technology should reduce stress, not add to it. When parents can see the same information and share the mental load, partnership strengthens and families thrive.”
The Analog Approach In Context
Chung’s embrace of analog parenting fits squarely within this broader cultural moment. Her twin boys are now four years old — precisely the age range when screen habits begin to solidify and when developmental experts say offline play matters most for building creativity and social skills.
Chung spoke to People about her parenting philosophy and her enthusiasm for raising her sons with an analog sensibility, making her one of the more prominent celebrity voices to publicly align with the trend in 2026.
What makes the analog conversation in 2026 different from earlier screen time debates is the tone. This is not a panic driven moral crusade against technology. It is a quieter, more deliberate recalibration with parents asking what kind of childhood they actually want to build, and making small, repeatable choices to get there.
The research from Nanit adds an important layer: the goal is not to throw out every device, but to be intentional about which technologies serve the family and which ones simply add noise.
Chung’s public embrace of the analog movement gives that conversation a recognizable face, and for parents of toddlers and young children especially, her story is a useful reminder that the choices made in these early years tend to echo for a long time.
