Behaviour Unpacked: The Digital Recalibration
2 minute read
Time to Touch Some Grass
In our new report, we unpack three emerging cultural behaviours. Here, we add some extra context to the second behaviour that we’ve documented - The Digital Recalibration.
For the last decade we’ve been told to “be online more.” Post more. Scroll more. Comment more. And for a while, we listened. We shifted our schedules, built content calendars and curated feeds, all to keep up. Until recently.
Because something’s shifting. Quietly, but definitively. Call it a recalibration. Not a total rejection of the internet (we haven’t lost our minds), but a reassessment of how we want to relate to it.
This isn’t digital detoxing in the old sense. No dramatic week-long breaks in the woods, no social media hiatus announcements or #offlineweekend challenges. It’s subtler. It’s everyday choices, muting the algorithm, choosing Substack over stories, spending a little longer on that obscure Reddit thread instead of your main feed. It’s even leaving your phone at home entirely.
There’s a cultural mood swing happening. A shift toward autonomy. People are choosing where they dwell online with more care. Reddit. Tumblr. Email newsletters. IRL things, even. Places that feel quieter. Weirder. More human. Less extractive. Less perfect. Libraries. Bookstores. There’s something about those places now.
And for brands, it’s a wake-up call.
Additional risk-taker: Allan Wexler x Tangible
We’re seeing that call answered in unexpected ways. Artist Allan Wexler, in collaboration with design studio Tangible, recently created an event called “Farm is Table.” Guests didn’t just eat food from the farm, they ate at the farm, seated at a table sculpted into the soil itself. Wildflowers and weeds formed the centrepiece, and the sky provided the lighting. No digital distractions. Just conversation, nature, and the meal itself. The table wasn’t laid, it was grown. The whole thing became a living critique of digital overload, urging people to re-engage with their surroundings.
Additional risk-taker: Usal Project
Usal Project in Los Angeles. Founded by Michael Washington after years in the digital fast lane, Usal is a nature-first community that brings people together outdoors. From guided hikes to foraging workshops and unplugged weekends under the stars, it’s become a quiet refuge for people tired of being always-on. Phones stay tucked away not by rule, but because no one feels the urge to pull them out. Usal is not about deleting your digital life, it’s about rediscovering what happens when you look up.
The next generation of cultural leaders isn’t looking for more ways to be online. They’re looking for reasons not to be. They’re deleting dating apps. Choosing singleness not as a default, but as an empowered, intentional state. It’s not about withdrawal, it’s about ownership.
So before you plan your next five pieces of TikTok content, ask yourself this: Could your brand do better by showing up somewhere else entirely? A field, maybe. A café. A gathering of likeminded people. A corner of the internet that hasn’t yet been optimised to death. I really like this idea. Because attention is changing. And where it’s going next won’t look like where it’s been.
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