The invention of the Bluetooth earbud was a nearly fatal blow for wired headphones. Following the release of the Apple AirPod, wired headphones became outdated almost overnight. What followed was several years of declining sales. Finally, in 2024, the popularity of wired headphones hit a near all time low, according to Forbes.
Since then, the technology has continued to improve. Battery life, connectivity, and design of wireless headphones have gotten better and better. And yet, starting in 2025, old-fashioned wired headphones are making a huge comeback. Gen Z is one group driving the trend.
People are fed up with Bluetooth headphones
Circana reports that wired headphone sales began surging in 2025. In the first six weeks of 2026, sales were up a massive 20%. That’s after years of plummeting toward obsolescence.
What’s behind the shift?
For starters, people are growing more and more irritated by spotty Bluetooth connections. The technology has improved a lot over the years, but you still never know when your Bluetooth will drop out in the middle of a song, a podcast, or an important work call.
Actress Zoë Kravitz, who has been spotted rocking wired headphones, said in an interview, “Bluetooth does not work. It’s ruining important moments.”
Bluetooth has been around for two decades now, and it seems practically every device we own can connect to everything else via the wireless technology. Smart lightbulbs connect to an app on our phones, which connect to our refrigerator, thermostat, hearing aids, keyboards, and more.
Even still, Bluetooth is prone to drops, painful discovery and connection processes, and security problems.
“The promise was to make it as seamless and easy as possible,” Carnegie Melon Professor Chris Harrison told CNN. “Bluetooth never quite got there, unfortunately.”
Young people, in particular, are hungry for analog experiences
The technology and convenience behind luxuries like wireless headphones are pretty amazing. But they come at a serious cost.
Gen Z doesn’t want to invest serious money in something that Apple used to throw in for free with its phones. Now, a good pair of headphones comes with a hefty price tag, has to be charged, and many stop working right when you need them most. Wireless headphones’ batteries also degrade over time, meaning they are a temporary item and not great for the environment. Most Bluetooth devices are destined to become e-waste within a few years.
A Reddit user wrote in one popular thread, “[I prefer wired headphones] because I never have to charge them. They live in my backpack and they’re always ready to go.”
“I dont want to charge more shit, whats hard to understand about that?” said another.
“Many people see the wire as a downside, but honestly after losing some very expensive wireless buds I see them as a massive plus,” another commenter added.
“Both my Gen Z kids prefer wired headphones for their iPhones No worries of them getting lost and they’re cheap so even if they do get lost or broken, it’s no big deal to get them replaced,” said another.
Others cite wired headphones as having better sound quality and superior built-in microphones for video calls.
The analog trend isn’t just about headphones
For all the doom and gloom talk about Gen Z being raised by technology, the generation overwhelmingly yearns for a simpler life.
Fortune describes a feeling called anemoia, a longing for a past life you never lived, and how prevalent it is in young people today. They have a growing awareness of the negative side effects of social media, are very concerned about AI, and many are craving in-person and analog experiences that are completely separate from the digital world:
Vinyl records have always been a popular niche interest, but young people are also driving a surge in CD and DVD sales. They’re cool, retro items, but they also represent a time when we really owned our media instead of rented access to it via streaming services.
Some people are ditching the alarm on their smartphones in favor of analog alarm clocks. Again, they’re cool and different, but they’re also a great way to separate your sleep routine from your phone and all of its notifications and distractions.
Film cameras, too, are making a comeback. Some Gen Zers are longing for a time when taking a photo meant something special, rather than just adding another to your infinite library. Polaroid-style cameras and disposables also give us an antidote to overly-curated social media perfection: film photos are inherently grainy, blurry, and imperfect. And that’s their charm.
Wired headphones, and other analog technology, have a lot of practical advantages over high-tech gear. But wearing old-fashioned headphones or winding up an old clock every night is about more than just cost and convenience. It’s a small act of rebellion against an all-digital world that has many of us feeling more disconnected than ever.
The out-of-focus Polaroid, the tangled wire of your headphones, these are the small bits of friction that have been slowly whittled out of our lives over the years. A lot of us want them back.
