Luddite teens: give up their smartphones and get away from social media

The New York Times – Life/Style – On a recent Sunday, a group of teens gathered on the steps of the Central Library in Brooklyn for the weekly Luddite Club (“Luddita Club”), prof A high school group promoting a lifestyle of self-emancipation from social media and technology. When the twelve teens made their way to Prospect Park, they went into hiding Iphone —or, in the case of the more religious members, their foldable phones, which some have decorated with stickers and nail polish.

They walked up the hill toward their usual spot, a mound of earth away from the park crowds. Among them was Odile Zexter-Kaiser, a freshman at Edward R. Murrow High School, who raced through the foliage in Doc Martins and mismatched woolen socks.

“It’s not viewed very favorably if nobody shows up,” O’Dell said. “We’re here every Sunday, rain or shine, or even snow. We don’t keep in touch with each other, so you have to show up.”

After club members have brought logs together to form a circle, they sit back and retreat in a bubble of serenity.

Some draw in notebooks. Others painted using a watercolor set. One of them closed his eyes to listen to the wind. Many read carefully – books in their backpacks included Crime and punishment in Fyodor DostoevskyAnd Moss II in Art Spiegelman And The consolation of philosophy in Boethius. Club members cite libertarian writers such as Hunter S. Thompson And Jack Kerouac As champions, and love actions that condemn technology, such as Mechanical piano by Kurt Vonnegut. Arthur, the bespectacled anteater on the TV show, is their mascot.

Many of us have read this book in the wildEssex Street Academy senior Lola Shop said, referring to the writer’s non-fiction book John Krakauer From 1996 onwards Chris McCandless, a nomad who died while trying to make a living off the land in the Alaskan wilderness. “We all have this theory that we shouldn’t just be confined to buildings and work. And that guy was living life. Real life. Social networks and phones are not reality.

“When I got my flip phone, things changed immediately,” Lola continued. “I started using my brain. It made me see myself as a person. I was trying to write a book, too. I have 12 pages now.”

Club members briefly discuss how to get to Luddite Bible. Founded last year by another Morrow High School student, Logan Lane, the club is named after him Ned Ludda folkloric 18th-century English textile worker who allegedly broke a mechanical loom, inspiring others to adopt his name and revolt against industrialization.

said Berock Watling, a student at Beacon High School in Manhattan, who uses a flip phone painted green with a picture Lauryn Hill from the era Fujis.

“I heard it’s spreading at Brooklyn Tech,” said another person.

Some members have taken the time to extol the benefits of becoming a Luddite.

“I exclude those I want to be friends with,” explained Jameson Butler, a student in a black T-shirt who was carving a piece of wood with a pocket knife. “Now it’s hard for me to maintain friendships. Some called when I turned off my iPhone and said, ‘I don’t like sending Texting you anymore because yours is green. That told me a lot.”

V. de la Cruz, who had a copy of Black souls in Webb DuboisHe said, “You post something on social media, you don’t get enough likes, you don’t feel good about yourself. This shouldn’t happen to anyone.

“Being in this club reminds me that we all live on a floating rock and that everything is going to be alright.”

A few days before the meeting, after being expelled at 3:00 p.m. from Morrow High School, a flood of students stormed out of the building onto the street. Many were looking at their smartphones, but not Logan Lane, the 17-year-old founder of Logan Lane. Luddite Club.

In the school building, I sat down for an interview at the Chock full o’Nuts café. She was wearing a loose-fitting corduroy jacket and quilted jeans that she had sewn herself using a Singer machine.

She said, “We have a problem recruiting members, but we really don’t care. We all come together for this one cause. To be in a Luddite club, there’s a certain level of mismatch.” “But I wasn’t always a Luddite, of course,” she added.

She said it all started during lockdown, when her use of social media took an alarming turn.

“I totally get it,” she said. “I couldn’t help but post a good picture if I had one. And I had my ‘I don’t care’ persona online, but I really did. I was definitely watching the whole thing.”

Finally, I’m so tired of chasing after another perfect selfie on Instagram InstagramI deleted the app.

But that wasn’t enough, she said. “So I put my phone in a box.”

For the first time, she lived city life as a teenager without an iPhone. I borrowed novels from the library and read them alone in the garden. She first started liking graffiti while riding the subway, then met some teenagers who taught her how to spray paint at a freight train yard in Queens. And she started waking up without an alarm at 7 a.m., no longer falling asleep from the glare of the phone in the middle of the night. Once, as I wrote later in an article titled “Luddite statement’ she thought, throwing her iPhone into the Gowanus channel.

While Logan’s parents appreciated her transformation, especially after she regularly came home to dinner to recount her wanderings, they were upset that they couldn’t hear from their daughter on a Friday night. After she conveniently misplaced the smartphone and asked her to take it to Paris for a summer abroad program, they were dumbfounded. They end up insisting that she at least start with the foldable phone.

“I still wish I never had a phone,” she said. “My parents are so addicted. My mom got on Twitter and saw her tear it up. But I think I love it too, because I feel a little bit superior to them.”

Today, the club has about 25 members, and the Morrow chapter meets at the school every Tuesday. They welcome students who haven’t yet given up their iPhones, and offer them the challenge of ignoring their devices for the hour-long meeting (lest they attract grimaces from the stubborn devices). At Sunday gatherings in the garden, Luddites often set up swings for reading in good weather.

When Logan tells the club’s origin story over an almond croissant in the cafeteria, a new member, Julian, appears. While he hasn’t switched to the foldable phone yet, he said he was already taking advantage of group messaging. He then jokes with Logan about Talib’s criticism of the club.

He said, “One of the children said it was my dish.” “I think the club is great because I have a break from my phone, but I understand their point. Some of us need technology to be included in society. Some of us need a phone.”

“We’ve been getting negative feedback,” Logan replied. “The argument I’ve heard is we’re a bunch of rich kids and expecting everyone to give up their phones is a privilege.”

After Julian leaves, Logan admits that she discussed the issue and that the topic sparked a heated discussion among the club members.

“I was really disappointed when I heard about the students and was about to say goodbye to the club,” she said. “I spoke to my advisor, though, and he told me that most revolutions really start with people from industrial backgrounds, like Che Guevara.

“We don’t expect everyone to have a foldable phone. We just see a problem Psychological health And Use of screens“.

On a tree-lined street in the Cobble Hill neighborhood, she entered her family’s home, where she was greeted by a goldendoodle named Phoebe, and hurried to her upstairs bedroom. The decor reflected her interests: there were stacks of books, patterned walls, as well as a sewing machine, royal typewriter and Sony cassette player.

In the downstairs living room, her father, Seth Lane, an IT executive, sat by the fireplace and reflected on his daughter’s trip.

“I am proud of her and what the club stands for,” he said. “But there’s also the parenting part, and we don’t know where our kid is. You’re following your kids now. You’re tracking them. It’s a little Orwellian, I guess, but we’re the helicopter parenting generation. So when you got rid of the iPhone, that was a problem for us in the start “.

He had heard of the Luddite Club’s concerns about privilege issues.

“Well, it’s classy to make people have smartphones too, right?” Lynn said. “I think they’re having a great conversation. There’s no right answer.” / Translated by LÍVIA BUELONI GONAALVES

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