2025-01-31
18 分钟Three years after starting a club meant to fight social media’s grip on young people, many original members are holding firm and gaining new converts.
My name is Alex Vaduchle and I'm a reporter
and feature writer for the Styles desk of the New York Times.
Imagine this.
No gps, no group chats, no scrolling to kill time on the train,
no instant answers, no dopamine hits from likes and notifications.
How do you date?
Split a tab?
Get home after a late concert?
Pay for a midnight slice of pizza?
What happens when you say you want to disavow smartphones and reject technology?
The story behind the story that I'm going to be reading for you today all started two years ago
with a tip that I got about a band of teenagers
in Brooklyn who'd started a high school club called the Luddite Club.
Their mission was to effectively reject technology and walk away from social media.
They'd emerged out of Edward R. Morrow High School in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn.
They spent their lunch breaks talking about literature and poetry
and they had posters and flyers around the school that said find yourself,
not your phone.
They'd meet on the weekends at Prospect park,
so of course I was intrigued when I eventually made contact with the club's leader, Logan lane.