Many of these companies are hoping to capitalize on gen Z’s growing weariness about the devices and social media platforms they grew up with. Nearly 60% of gen Z respondents identified as having a social media addiction in an April poll, and a third of the generation said they had deleted some of those apps, according to a 2025 survey.

The shift has also been driven by growing anger at tech platforms that have left some in gen Z feeling as if they are being exploited for profit.

Gen Z “was basically optimized for dopamine by very smart systems”, said Kenneth Schlenker, 39, a former product marketer at Google and co-founder of Opal. “But this generation is also realizing what they don’t want and are trying to change how the system impacts them.”