Why some are returning to MP3 players
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Grab your corded headphones: People are snapping up old 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.
The intrigue: Some students are even using iPods to get around phone bans at school, the New York Times reports.
Zoom in: That might work in Kansas, where the phone ban law defines a personal electronic device strictly as something that "provides for voice, text or video communication between two or more parties."
- Missouri, however, took a broader approach, banning any device "used to initiate, receive, store, or view communication, information, images, or data electronically."
Cal Newport, a computer science professor and author of "Digital Minimalism," says people like the older tech because it only has one purpose: listening to music.
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.
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.