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Discover how product packaging is increasingly being used to help people to disconnect from digital distractions.

Well-designed packaging can do a lot of things: protect its contents from damage, preserve sensitive goods, carry essential information and attract a customer to choose one product over another. But at a time when digital fatigue is quickly becoming a challenge for many people, it’s now taking on another more difficult task: helping people to disconnect.

With Two Sides’ latest Trend Tracker report finding that 50% of Europeans believe they spend too much time on electronic devices and 48% concerned that the overuse of electronic devices could be damaging to their health, there’s a clear desire among consumers to turn away from their screens. And with its tactile nature and printable space, packaging is ideally placed to help them achieve that.

So here are four key trends and examples of packaging that are turning people away from their devices and towards more relaxing activities.

1. KitKat Break Mode

Developed by Ogilvy Colombia for the Panama market, KitKat’s Break Mode special edition wrapper is actually a Faraday cage – a pouch made of conductive materials that blocks external electrical fields. Once the biscuits have been removed, KitKat lovers can place their phone inside the pouch to isolate it from all electronic activity, including calls, the internet, Bluetooth and GPS. “Break Mode goes beyond simply saying ‘Have a Break’,” says Kim Waigel, Marketing Director for Nestlé in Central America. “It empowers individuals with the physical tool to genuinely achieve it.”

2. Read-While-You-Wait

Some products such as tea, coffee and even instant noodles are using the time it takes for their product to be ready to entertain their customers, diverting them away from their screens in the few minutes it takes to brew or cook. Whether it’s Yogi Tea printing inspirational messages on their tags such as ‘Happiness is actually an art of living, which is within us’ or Kicking Horse Coffee printing mazes on the inside of its bags for drinkers to solve while brewing, there’s a growing trend for brands to use every part of the packaging to engage their customers.

3. Analogue-First Design

While the use of QR codes exploded during the pandemic, brands are starting to dial back their use, with some stripping digital touchpoints from packaging entirely. With a 2026 Deloitte study finding that 7 in 10 users are spending too much time on their phones, this reflects the growing desire for consumers to disconnect and not add more online content to their lives. It also has the effect of putting all the focus on the product without digital distractions.

4. Circular Luxury

A number of premium brands are taking the concept of circular packaging one step further. But rather than encouraging customers to refill or recycle packaging once the product has been used, they are creating such beautiful designs that the customer is expected to repurpose the packaging as ornaments or art. Alongside the iconic Tiffany jewellery boxes being used as storage solutions, the packaging for premium rum brand Brugal can be used as an elegant Caribbean lantern, while champagne brands such as Dom Pérignon and Krug design cases that transform into ice buckets or wine racks.

5. Self-Reflection

Wellness brands, particularly in the areas of particularly in supplements, CBD and self-care, are printing journal questions, breathing exercises or gratitude prompts on the inside of their packaging, turning the daily ritual of opening a product into a moment of offline reflection. For instance, the women’s supplements brand Equi London features diagrams of the body’s ten systems that keeps “the power of your body in balance”.

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