Bouldering to crochet: Hobbies that keep youngsters away from the screens

For a generation that spends much of its day switching between screens, meetings and notifications, leisure is beginning to look surprisingly old-school. Young professionals are picking up crochet hooks, climbing walls, paintbrushes and golf clubs, while others are returning to journaling, pottery, cooking or writing not necessarily to become good at them, but simply to do something that exists outside their work and phones.

What hobbies are youngsters picking up to keep them away from the screens?

The trend, often referred to online as “hobby maxing”, has turned hobbies into a way of making room for something that a busy routine tends to push aside: time for oneself.

For Sejal, 25, of Delhi NCR, who has worked in legislative research and is now building her own platform, that has meant taking up a new hobby almost every month. Golf is her current fixation. Before that came pickleball, rifle shooting, pottery, Madhubani and Mandala painting, and rock climbing. Running has also become part of her routine.

“I majorly pick one hobby for a month. And then I go from beginner to intermediate, advanced, etc., in taking it up and seeing how it pans out for me,” she says. Her recent preference, however, has been for activities that get her outdoors. "That's why I have picked up a lot of sports lately,” she says.

The motivation is less about collecting accomplishments and more about escaping the monotony of professional life. Hobbies provide something to look forward to outside work and help break the cycle of returning home to YouTube or Netflix.

Get off the screen

That desire to disconnect is echoed by Sambhavi, 28, a Mumbai consultant who has recently taken up bouldering while rediscovering writing, art and journaling. For her, these hobbies offer a way to step away from the constant digital stimulation of everyday life and reconnect with activities that allow her to slow down. “I think in some way, it drains us in a way we don't recognise. And I think there's also like a lot of dopamine overload,” she says, describing the growing attraction towards “going analogue” as a way of giving the mind a break.

Her relationship with journaling and writing has also evolved. She first experimented with the idea of keeping a diary as a child, later discovering journaling through an online group during the pandemic. Writing, meanwhile, has remained a way to put her thoughts into words, while art gives her another form of expression when she does not feel like using words.

Bouldering, in particular, has offered her something that a desk-bound routine cannot. She describes the experience of climbing as feeling like there is “a monkey inside me” that had been kept in a cage by sitting at a desk from nine to five. The sport also comes with its own challenges. As the difficulty increases, she finds that fear and self-doubt can become bigger obstacles than physical strength. Completing a level, therefore, brings its own rush.

For Sambhavi, that is also where the distinction between a hobby and another form of self-improvement becomes important. “The minute I start doing it, for the sake of self-improvement, it might start feeling like a chore,” she says.

Just play

Perhaps what young adults are rediscovering through hobbies is something they were once expected to do without justification -- play. Sambhavi describes her hobbies as a way of exploring what “play” means as an adult. With a full-time job, activities such as art and writing give her a space where she can reconnect with the part of herself that simply wants to create something for the joy of it.

For Bhumika Bedi, a Delhi psychologist companion at a startup, learning crochet was not about mastering another skill or creating something Instagram-worthy. “I learnt crocheting because I wanted to gift my loved ones something that carries me, my time and my efforts, and is handmade,” she says. She also sees hobbies as a form of emotional expression. More importantly, it has made her realise the value of spending time alone doing something she enjoys.

Words of their own

For Aditya Pathak, a Delhi pharmacist, writing poetry offers a different kind of outlet. He finds writing poems a way to vent himself and turn his thoughts into something tangible, making the activity less about producing something “useful” and more about finding a language for what he feels. That idea runs through many of these newer hobbies.

Pathak, a Zoology undergraduate at Ranchi University, has similarly found fulfilment in activities away from academics. He sets aside Sundays and spare time to cook new dishes, go camping or try something different. For him, hobbies bring an energy that everyday academic work does not. He believes today's young people also have greater access to hobbies than previous generations did. Social media, tutorials and online communities make it easier to discover activities, find people with similar interests and learn how to pursue them.

But the irony is hard to miss -- of social media helping people discover ways to escape social media. Sejal, for instance, finds many of her new hobbies through Instagram itself. Watching people document their experiences motivates her to try activities, after which she filters options based on location and cost. The online world, therefore, is not necessarily the enemy of the hobby. It can be the doorway into it.

Purva, a B.Com student at the University of Delhi, has recently taken up reading articles on Substack, drawn to its accessible writing and thought-provoking ideas. She also writes occasionally, working on dialogues, short stories and scripts as part of her college activities. She says she had been interested in painting and craft when she was younger, but then academics took over.

The renewed interest in hobbies, she believes, is also tied to the constant stream of content young people encounter online. “People are very saturated,” she says. “Something is changing every second. Then every second we are into the new jungle of being interested.”

Something to look forward to

There is also a social element to the hobby boom. Bouldering may be an individual sport, but Sambhavi says the community around it can be encouraging, with people cheering one another on. Sejal similarly finds that these activities have helped her meet new people.

For Bedi, the renewed interest also connects with nostalgia, as people return to activities that were once more commonplace. The challenge, however, is not finding a hobby. It is resisting the urge to turn it into another achievement.

As Sambhavi puts it, hobbies can easily become another thing to be “good” at, another target to hit or another metric to measure. Instead, she wants to treat them as play, something done because it brings joy.

In a culture that increasingly asks what every hour can produce, perhaps the new hobby is simply learning to spend some time without needing an answer.

This article is written by Sreya S. Motti

For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.