“Luddite Teenagers: They Abandoned Their Smartphones And Fled Social Networks Estadão

THE NEW YORK TIMES LIFE/STYLE Last Sunday, a group of teenagers gathered on the steps of the Central Library in Brooklyn for the weekly newspaper Luddite Club (“Luddita Club”), a High school group promoting a lifestyle of selfliberation from social media and technology. As the twelve teenagers made their way to Prospect Park, they hid theirs iPhones or, in the case of the more devout members, their clamshell phones, some decorated with stickers and nail polish.

They marched up the hill to their usual spot, a country hill away from the crowds in the park. Among them was Odille ZexterKaiser, a senior at Edward R. Murrow High School, who trudged through the leaves in Doc Martens shoes and mismatched wool socks.

“It’s frowned upon when someone doesn’t show up,” said Odille. “We are here every Sunday, rain or shine or even snow. We don’t keep in touch, so you have to show up.”

After gathering logs to form a circle, club members sat and retreated into a bubble of serenity.

Clementine KarlinPustilnik, Odille ZexterKaiser and Jameson Butler at a recent Luddite Club gathering in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Photo: Scott Rossi/The New York Times

Some drew in notebooks. Others painted with a watercolor box. One of them closed his eyes to listen to the wind. Many read carefully the books in their knapsacks contain crimes and atonements Fyodor DostoyevskyMouse II from Art mirror man and The consolation of the philosophy of Boethius. Club members cite outspoken writers as Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac as heroes, and they like works that condemn technology, like Kurt Vonnegut’s Mechanical Piano. Arthur, the bespectacled anteater from PBS, is their mascot.

“A lot of us have read this book called Into the Wild,” said Lola Shub, a senior at Essex Street Academy, referring to the nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer from 1996 Chris McCandless, a nomad who died trying to make a living off the land in the Alaskan wilderness. “We all have this theory that we shouldn’t just limit ourselves to buildings and work. And this guy experienced life. The true life. Social networks and phones are not real life.

“When I got my clamshell phone, things changed immediately,” Lola continued. “I started using my brain. It made me look at myself as a person. I also tried to write a book. I now have 12 pages.”

Club members briefly discussed how the reach of the Luddite Gospel. The club was founded last year by and is named after another Murrow High School student, Logan Lane Ned Luddthe folkloric 18thcentury English textile worker who allegedly broke a mechanized loom and inspired others to take his name and rebel against industrialization.

The Luddite Club meets once a week. “It’s a little frowned upon if someone doesn’t show up,” said one member. Photo: Scott Rossi/The New York Times

“I just had my first successful Luddite meeting in Beacon,” said Biruk Watling, a senior at Beacon High School in Manhattan, who uses a clamshell phone painted green with a picture of a on it Lauryn Hill the era refugees.

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

A few members took the time to extol the benefits of becoming a Luddite.

Jameson Butler, a student in a Black Flag Tshirt carving a piece of wood with a penknife, explained: “I shut out those I want to be friends with. Now I have a hard time maintaining friendships. Some reached out when I turned off the iPhone and said, “I don’t like texting you anymore because your messages are green. That said a lot to me.”

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Vee De La Cruz, who had a copy of The Souls of Black People WEB DuBoisHe said: “You post something on social media, you don’t get enough likes and you don’t feel good about yourself. This shouldn’t happen to anyone.

“Being at this club reminds me that we are all living on a floating rock and everything is going to be fine.”

Logan Lane, founder of the club, in her bedroom. The movement she started at Murrow High School in Brooklyn has spread to other New York schools. Photo: Scott Rossi/The New York Times

A few days before the meeting, after being released from Murrow High School at 3:00 p.m., a flood of students poured out of the building onto the street. Many of them checked their smartphones, but not Logan Lane, the 17yearold founder of Luddite Club.

On the school block, she sat down for an interview at a Chock full o’Nuts cafe. She was wearing a loose corduroy jacket and padded jeans that she had sewn herself on a Singer machine.

“We’re having trouble recruiting members,” she said, “but we really don’t care. We all come together for this one thing. To be in the Luddite Club, there’s a degree of misfit.” She added, “But I wasn’t always a Luddite, of course.”

It all started during lockdown, she said, when her use of social media took a worrying turn.

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“I was totally captivated,” she said. “I couldn’t help but post a good picture if I had one. And I had this “I don’t care” persona online, but I actually did. I definitely watched everything.”

A Luddite Club poster in Logan Lane’s bedroom with the club’s slogan “Don’t be fake”. Photo: Scott Rossi/The New York Times

Finally too tired to pull off another perfect selfie Instagramshe deleted the app.

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

As a teenager, she experienced city life without an iPhone for the first time. She borrowed novels from the library and read them alone in the park. She began admiring graffiti while riding the subway and then met some teenagers who taught her how to spray paint at a Queens railroad yard. And she started waking up at 7am with no alarm and no longer lulled to sleep by the midnight glow of the phone. Once, as she later wrote in a play entitled “Luddite Manifesto‘ she thought of throwing her iPhone into the Gowanus Canal.

While Logan’s parents appreciated her transformation, especially since she regularly came home for dinner to share stories of her wanderings, they were distressed that they couldn’t hear from their daughter on a Friday night. And after she conveniently misplaced the smartphone she was supposed to bring to Paris for a summer program abroad, they were desperate. In the end, they insisted that she at least start carrying a clamshell phone.

“To be in the Luddite Club, there’s a certain level of misfit,” Logan said. Photo: Scott Rossi/The New York Times

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“I still wish I didn’t have a phone at all,” she said. “My parents are so addicted. My mom took to Twitter and I saw it tear her up. But I think I also like it because I feel a little superior to them.”

Today the association has about 25 members and the Murrow branch meets every Tuesday at the school. They welcome students who haven’t given up their iPhones yet, and challenge them to ignore their devices for the hourlong meeting (lest they draw the frowns of the stubborn ones). At Sunday gatherings in the park, Luddites often set up hammocks for reading in good weather.

As Logan related the club’s origin story over an almond croissant in the cafeteria, a new member, Julian, appeared. Though he hasn’t switched to a flip phone yet, he said he’s already benefiting from the group’s messages. He then joked with Logan about a criticism a student had made of the club.

“A boy said he was a homeroom teacher,” he said. “I think the club is cool for having a break from my phone but I get their point. Some of us need technology to be included in society. Some of us need a phone.”

“We’ve had negative reactions,” Logan replied. “The argument I’ve heard is that we’re a bunch of rich kids and it’s a privilege to expect everyone to give up their phones.”

After Julian left, Logan admitted that she had discussed the topic and that the topic had sparked a heated discussion among club members.

Odille, Clementine, Jameson, Logan and Max Frackman on their way to their weekly get together. Photo: Scott Rossi/The New York Times

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“I was really discouraged when I heard the classic thing and I was almost ready to say goodbye to the club,” she said. “However, I spoke to my adviser and he told me that most revolutions really start with people from an industrial background, such as Che Guevara.

“We don’t expect everyone to have a clamshell phone. We only see one problem from Mental health and use of screens“.

On a treelined street in the Cobble Hill neighborhood, she entered her family’s home, where she was greeted by a Goldendoodle named Phoebe, and rushed upstairs to her bedroom. The decor reflected her interests: there were stacks of books, graffiti on the walls, and a Royal typewriter and Sony tape player alongside the sewing machine.

In the downstairs living room, her father, Seth Lane, an executive who works in information technology, sat by the fireplace reflecting on his daughter’s journey.

“I’m proud of them 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 follow your children now. They follow her. It’s a little Orwellian I guess, but we’re the helicopter parenting generation. When she got rid of the iPhone, that was an issue for us at first.”

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

“Well, it’s classy trying to get people to have smartphones too, isn’t it?” Lane said. “I think they’re having a great conversation. There is no right answer.” / TRANSLATION LÍVIA BUELONI GONÇALVES

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