Grab your corded headphones: People are snapping up Apple's retired MP3 players for nostalgia and a break from smartphones.
The big picture: For younger generations especially, the comeback is part of a broader return to offline devices and hobbies, driven by digital burnout.
By the numbers: Search interest for the original iPod and the iPod Nano spiked last year — even though Apple discontinued the product line in 2022, according to Google Trends data.
- eBay searches jumped for the iPod Classic (+25%) and iPod Nano (+20%) between January and October 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, per internal data shared with Axios.
- Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
How it works: Older tech tends to be "single-purpose," says Cal Newport, a computer science professor and author of "Digital Minimalism." "All you can do with an iPod, for example, is listen to music."
- Smartphones, by contrast, bundle music, messages, social feeds, news and more, making it "nearly impossible to control your technology use with any consistency," Newport says.
What they're saying: Katherine Esters, who "grew up with the rise and fall of iPods," recently purchased a Classic model for $100 on Facebook Marketplace.
- She listens to it when she's "trying to cleanse myself of being on my phone."
- "Sometimes, I just want to go out, take a walk, and I want to listen to music, but I don't necessarily want 20 notifications," Esters tells Axios.
And iPods can evoke memories of slower, less chaotic times.
- "Gen Z and young adults are experiencing a lot of uncertainty in our lives, and it's very hard for us to have a lot of hope in the future," says Natalie Constantine, who received a secondhand iPod Nano this past Christmas.
- "So, we kind of attach to things that brought us hope and happiness in the past, like using an iPod."
"The act of playing my music, with the sole purpose of listening to music — no ads, no apps, no distractions — makes my brain feel brand-new again," says Gen Zer Shaughnessy Barker, who started using an iPod Classic over the holidays after scouring eBay and Facebook Marketplace.
Between the lines: The MP3 revival also taps into so-called "friction-maxxing," as younger people embrace more hands-on experiences over algorithmic ease, says Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll.
- Think: Manually loading a set number of songs onto an iPod instead of letting a streaming app curate a playlist for you.
- "We're moving away from total, seamless, convenience culture and back to finding meaning in friction," Rodney tells Axios.
The intrigue: Some students are even using iPods to get around phone bans at school, the New York Times reports.
Reality check: Music streaming isn't fading anytime soon.
- U.S. on-demand audio streaming reached 1.4 trillion song streams in 2025, up from 1.3 trillion the year before, according to Luminate, an industry data firm.
The bottom line: What goes around comes back around, click wheel and all.
