Designers say staging increasingly highlights screen-free spaces, helping buyers picture rooms meant for rest, creativity and time offline.
NEW YORK — Screen-free “analog rooms” are emerging as a design response to growing digital fatigue, with homeowners and designers carving out spaces intentionally free of smart technology and constant connectivity.
Rather than optimizing homes for screens and automation, these rooms prioritize activities like reading, playing music, board games and quiet conversation, offering a sense of retreat many say is missing from daily life.
Interest in analog living has grown alongside concerns about screen time, privacy and overstimulation, with designers noting more client requests for spaces that support rest, creativity, and mental well-being.
Catherine Price, author of “How to Break Up With Your Phone,” said, “People are waking up to the idea that screens are getting in the way of real life interactions and taking steps through design choices to create an alternative, places where people can be fully present.”
From basement game rooms to sunrooms, music spaces, and wellness nooks, these areas often rely on physical media, simple materials, and flexible layouts instead of wiring and devices.
Even for homeowners who don’t have additional space for a rec room can add visual cues to their space that call to analog habits, such as pianos, integrating an old phone booth into the home with some vintage whimsical animal-adorned wallpaper, bookshelves and other accessories.
Source: Wall Street Journal (01/09/26) Knoepflmacher, Nora
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