Opinion: Consumers are exhausted by the endless social media scroll. Pinterest’s Xanthe Wells says the best brands are helping people close the app and get back to real life.
Two powerful societal shifts are colliding, and instead of cancelling each other out, they’re rewriting the rules of the social media attention economy.
On one side: the great unplugging. Gen Z is limiting screen time, buying flip phones or paying for digital detox retreats, in which their smartphones are confiscated. A generation that grew up online is trying to claw back a life that doesn’t feel owned by the endless, relentless scroll.
On the other side is AI. The fastest technological adoption many of us will ever witness. In a few years, these tools have moved from novelty to infrastructure. AI is now part of search, planning, writing, designing, shopping, scheduling – almost anything you can think of.
So which is it? Are we running away from technology, or sprinting toward it? I think the answer is both. Because the dumbphone and the AI prompt are not opposites. They’re the same impulse expressing itself in two directions. Both are saying: get me past the noise of social media and online apps. And get me back to my life.
The social media loop is the problem
What people are rejecting isn’t technology. They’re rejecting the loop.
We know the loop, the algorithmic one. It’s the one designed by very smart people, very intentionally, to keep us in the app or social media site, instead of getting us to the thing we opened the app for in the first place.
We look at our phones to find recipes and end up in a trance watching someone pressure cleaning their driveway for an audience of millions.
We didn’t choose that. The loop chose it for us. And the toughest part is that even when the content is harmless, we still put the phone down and feel worse. Not always because we saw something terrible but because we just spent time going nowhere. It’s a hangover without the party.
That feeling isn’t an accident. It’s a design choice and the downstream effect of an entire industry optimising for the wrong metrics: time spent, engagement, social media “stickiness”. The industry has become world-class at capturing attention. But we’re now also oddly comfortable at never answering the obvious question: Attention for what?
Where AI fits in
Now look at how people use AI when it’s working well. They don’t use it to linger, but to arrive.
They bring their real lives, which are often messy, specific, and yet human, and they ask for help. Plan a five-day Kyoto itinerary with a toddler. I have leftover rice, eggs, and everything in my freezer – make dinner. Help me write the email I’ve been avoiding.
At its best, AI is a shortcut through friction. It’s a tool that means we no longer must wade through ten pages of noise to get an answer. Here is what you need. Now, go live your day.
In other words, AI validates the same need Gen Z is acting on when they unplug.
People aren’t necessarily addicted to technology. They’re exhausted by the loop.
The brands that win will “design the exit”
Here’s the provocation I think every brand leader needs to sit with: The most important thing your brand can do right now is get people to stop looking at you, your interface or app, and go do something.
Cook the meal. Build the deck. Book the trip. Paint the room. Learn the language. Start the hobby. Finish the project.
It’s what we have termed “designing the exit” and it’s about building experiences that don’t trap people in a social media feed, a funnel, or an endless carousel of options, but instead creating a clean path from inspiration to action.
This is not anti-digital, but it is ultimately about outcomes. And when you help someone successfully do the thing they came for, you don’t just win a transaction; you build repeat behaviour and trust over time.
What it looks like in real life
Once you notice this pattern, you see it everywhere. Creative tools that turn browsing into making in seconds, creating less hunting and more doing.
Language learning products that may still use habit mechanics, but with the real-world objective of speaking to someone or ordering dinner. Physical devices that intentionally add friction to mindless habits, forcing us to make conscious choices.
Brands and retailers that build campaigns around projects people can do at home, such as crafts, DIY, cooking, and then make the “how” and the “what to buy” easily accessible.
These examples each come from different categories, but they reflect the same underlying approach. Instead of asking, ‘How do we keep you here?’ They ask, ‘Where are you trying to go, and how do we help you get there?’
An “Exit” framework
If you’re a brand leader staring down a quarterly target, then the “get people off their phones” edict can sound inspiring on a stage but incomplete in a boardroom.
So here’s the practical version: three verbs, simple enough to put on a sticky note and bring into your next brief.
- Inspire: Show someone a version of their life that’s bigger than what they’re living now. Not your product, but their possibility.
- Ignite Intention: Remove friction. Give them the tools, clarity, confidence, or steps to act.
- Set them Free: Let them go and don’t trap them. Put your brand second and their life first.
That last one is the hardest and it’s the one that will define the next decade. Because if the last twenty years were about building the loop, the next ten will be about building the door.
The next era of brand growth will be won by whoever inspires the most action; whoever helps people close the app, leave the feed and go do something real. The brands that truly hear that won’t just earn impressions, but also trust, loyalty, advocacy, maybe even love.
So yes, this is my provocation, and I mean it: Stop building for the loop and start designing for the exit.
Xanthe Wells is the VP of Global Creative for Pinterest
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