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When I was a sophomore in high school, my favorite teacher introduced me to a new concept. She called it a “daybook” — and before long, I called it an obsession. It was a blank hardcover journal, but it was more than just a place to write down my thoughts and feelings. It was a canvas to decorate, each page coming to life through photos and words I carefully cut out of the stack of old magazines that lived in the high school art room. My best friend Betsy and I spent hours poring through old issues of Cosmo and Seventeen, snipping out the tidbits that would best illustrate our feelings. We would even swap daybooks during study hall and make pages for one another.
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I kept a daybook consistently throughout my high school years (ah, the ’90s) and well into my twenties, and I love to look at them now. Part scrapbook, part diary, they’re a chronicle of my teenage and young adult years, the little things and everyday details that would’ve faded from memory if I hadn’t written them down.
So when I heard it was becoming a thing again — just called a “junk journal” this time around — I was excited: now a new generation of kids can discover the joy and creativity of filling their own blank pages.
It isn’t exactly surprising; tech-weary Gen Z is increasingly embracing low-tech hobbies like knitting, puzzles, and book clubs, and leaning into ’90s and ’00s nostalgia in a way that makes those of us who grew up during those years feel gleeful. (Finally, the kids are discovering that we were actually cool!) A 2023 Harris Poll showed that 60 percent of the Gen Z-ers surveyed said they wished they could return to a time before everyone was “plugged in.” And conversations with members of our very own SheKnows Teen Council show that they actively seek out ways to not be glued to a screen. “I’ve been trying to get myself to do activities so I have a reason to not be on my phone,” 17-year-old Sophia told us. “Because otherwise I’ll feel like, ‘Oh, I’m not doing anything, I might as well be on my phone.’”
“I often hear people wonder if today’s young adults were born too late to reap the benefits of the pre-internet world,” said social psychologist Dr. Clay Routledge in a recent op-ed for The New York Times. “Our research gives me hope that the answer is no, because historical nostalgia is helping them to do just that.”
So if your teen has never tried junk journaling — or hasn’t even heard of it — now is a great time to introduce them to this fun, nostalgic mode of self-expression.
Artifact Uprising Junk Journal
With ten color choices and a personalized hard cover and spine, these customizable high-quality junk journals from Artifact Uprising have anywhere from 20-60 matte lay-flat pages. And since photos are mostly digital these days, you can upload yours to the Artifact Uprising website and they’ll put them in the book for you (once you choose your own layout, of course). Then it’s just up to you to embellish with your favorite stickers, sketches, scribbles, and scraps!
Covogoods CovoBook Real Hardcover with Blank Pages
If you’d rather go the completely low-tech route and use actual printed photos, these CovoBooks are a great option, with 14 color choices and 4 different size options. They’re also hardcover and blank inside — and have 336 pages, which gives you tons of room to fill it with cool stuff!
Now that I’m in my forties, I look back on my daybooks (er, junk journals) and laugh, cry, and cringe. They’re a beautiful reminder of the kid I used to be, and how cool she was — and I cherish them. And maybe that’s the real magic of junk journaling: it’s not about creating something perfect, it’s about capturing a moment in time. Whether your teen fills their pages with doodles, lyrics, clippings, or confessions, they’re building a keepsake of who they are right now — something they’ll flip through years from now and recognize themselves in. In a world where everything feels fleeting and digital, a junk journal is a reminder that some memories are best preserved on paper.
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