On a brisk recent Sunday, a group of teens gathered on the steps of Central Library on Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza to kick off the weekly meeting of the Luddite Club, a high school group that promotes a lifestyle of self-liberation from social media and technology. When the dozens of teens entered Prospect Park, they hid their iPhones—or, in the case of the most devout members, their flip phones, which some had decorated with stickers and nail polish.
They marched up a hill to their usual spot, a sand knoll far from the bustle of the park. Among them was Odille Zexter-Kaiser, a senior at Edward R. Murrow High School in Midwood, who trudged through leaves in Doc Martens and mismatched wool socks.
“It’s a little frowning when someone doesn’t show up,” Odille said. “We’re here every Sunday, rain or shine, even snow. We don’t keep in touch, so you have to show up.
After the club members gathered logs to form a circle, they sat down and retreated into a bubble of serenity.
Some drew in sketchbooks. Others painted with a watercolor kit. One of them closed their eyes to listen to the wind. Many read attentively – the books in their bookbag included Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”, Art Spiegelman’s “Maus II” and Boethius’s “The Consolation of Philosophy”. The club members quote libertine writers as Hunter S.Thompson and Jack Kerouac as heroes, and they have a fondness for it works that condemn technology, such as “Player Piano” by Kurt Vonnegut. Arthur, de spectacles PBS aardvark, is their mascot.
“Many of us have read this book called ‘Into the Wild,'” he said Lola Schuba senior at Essex Street Academy, referring to Jon Krakauer’s 1996 non-fiction book about nomad Chris McCandless, who died trying to live off the land in the Alaskan wilderness. “We all have the theory that we are not meant to be limited to buildings and work. And that man experienced life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life.”
“When I got my flip phone things changed right away,” Lola continued. “I started using my brain. It made me observe myself as a person. I also tried to write a book. It’s now 12 pages.”
Briefly, club members discussed how their Luddite gospel was being spread. Founded last year by another Murrow High School student, Logan Laneis the club named after Ned Luddthe folkloric 18th century English textile worker who supposedly smashed a mechanized loom, inspiring others to take his name and rebel against industrialization.
“I just held the first successful Luddite meeting in Beacon,” said Biruk Watling, a senior at Beacon High School in Manhattan, who uses a green-painted flip phone with a photo of a Fugees-era Lauryn Hill taped to it.
“I hear there are rumors of it spreading at Brooklyn Tech,” someone else said.
A few members took a moment to praise the benefits of Luddite.
Jameson Butler, a college student in a Black Flag T-shirt who was carving a piece of wood with a penknife, explained, “I threw out who I want to be friends with. Now it takes me work to maintain friendships. Some reached out when I got off the iPhone and said, “I don’t like texting you anymore because your texts are green.” That told me a lot.”
Vee De La Cruz, who had a copy of WEB Du Bois’s “The Souls of Black Folk,” said, “You post something on social media, you don’t get enough likes, then you don’t feel good about yourself. That would shouldn’t happen to anyone. Being in this club reminds me that we all live on a floating rock and that everything will be alright.”
A few days before the meeting, after the resignation of 3 p.m. at Murray High School, a stream of students poured out of the building into the street. Many of them stared at their smartphones, but not Logan, the 17-year-old founder of the Luddite Club.
Around the corner from the school she sat for an interview with one Packed with o’Nuts coffee shop. She wore a baggy corduroy jacket and padded jeans she’d sewn herself on a Singer sewing machine.
“We’re having trouble recruiting members,” she said, “but we don’t really care. We all have a connection to this unique purpose. To be in the Luddite Club is a level of being a maverick. She added, “But of course I wasn’t always a luddite.”
It all started during the lockdown, she said, when her social media use took a worrying turn.
“I became completely consumed,” she said. ‘I could not do it not post a good picture if i had one. And I had this online persona of “I don’t care,” but I really did. I was absolutely still watching everything.
Finally, too burnt out to scroll past another perfect Instagram selfie, she deleted the app.
“But that wasn’t enough,” she said. “So I put my phone in a box.”
She first experienced life in the city as a teenager without an iPhone. She borrowed novels from the library and read them alone in the park. She began admiring graffiti while riding the subway, then came into contact with some teenagers who taught her how to spray paint at a freight train yard in Queens. And she started waking up at 7am with no alarm clock and stopped falling asleep at midnight with the glow of her phone. Once, as she later wrote in a text titled “Luddite Manifesto,” she fantasized about throwing her iPhone into the Gowanus Channel.
While Logan’s parents appreciated her metamorphosis, especially since she regularly came home for dinner to recount her wanderings, they grew sad that they couldn’t check in with their daughter on Friday night. And after she conveniently lost the smartphone they asked her to take to Paris for a summer program abroad, they were distraught. In the end, they insisted that she at least carry a flip phone.
“I still long to not have a phone at all,” she said. “My parents are so addicted. My mom started on Twitter and I’ve seen it tear her apart. But I think I like it too because I can feel a little superior to them.
At an all-ages punk show, she met a teenager with a flip phone, and they bonded over their worldview. “She was only a freshman and I couldn’t believe how well-read she was,” Logan said. “We walked in the park with apple cider and donuts and shared our Luddite experiences. That was the first meeting of the Luddite Club.” This early compatriot, Jameson Butler, remains a member.
When school resumed, Logan began preaching her gospel in the fluorescent-lit corridors of Murrow. First she convinced Odille to become a Luddite. Dan Max. Dan Clem. She hung homemade posters with Ned Ludd’s story in hallways and classrooms.
At a club fair, her registration table remained silent all day, but little by little, the group began to grow. Today the club has about 25 members and the Murrow chapter meets at the school every Tuesday. It welcomes students who have yet to give up their iPhones and challenges them to ignore their devices during the hour-long meeting (to avoid frowning on the die-hards). At the Sunday park meetings, Luddites often set up hammocks to read in when the weather is nice.
While Logan was telling the club’s origin story over an almond croissant in the coffee shop, a new member, Julian, stopped by. While he hadn’t yet switched to a flip phone, he said he was already benefiting from the group’s message. He then scolded Logan about a student’s criticism of the club.
“A boy said it’s classic,” he said. “I think the club is nice because I get a break from my phone, but I get what they mean. Some of us need technology to be included in society. Some of us need a phone.”
“We’re getting backlash,” 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 drop their phone.”
After Julian left, Logan admitted that she had struggled with the case and that the subject had sparked heated debate among club members.
“I was really discouraged when I heard the classic stuff and was almost ready to say goodbye to the club,” she said. “However, I spoke to my advisor and he told me that most revolutions actually start with people with an industrial background, like Che Guevara. We don’t expect everyone to have a flip phone. We only see a problem with mental health and screen use.”
Logan had to go home to meet a tutor, so she went to the subway. With the end of her senior year in sight and the pressures of adulthood looming, she’s also been thinking about what dropping out of high school might mean for her Luddite ways.
“If this is the only time in my life I’m doing this, I’m going to make it count,” she said. “But I really hope it doesn’t stop.”
On a leafy street in Cobble Hill, she entered her family’s mansion, was greeted by a goldendoodle named Phoebe, and hurried upstairs to her room. The decor reflected her interests: there were stacks of books, graffitied walls and, in addition to the sewing machine, a manual Royal typewriter and a Sony cassette player.
In the living room downstairs, her father, Seth Lane, an executive who works in IT, sat next to a fireplace and reflected on his daughter’s journey.
“I’m proud of her and what the club stands for,” he said. “But there’s also the parent’s part, and we don’t know where our child is. You follow your children now. You follow them up. It’s a little Orwellian, I think, but we are the parent generation of the helicopter. So when she threw away the iPhone, that was initially a problem for us.
He had heard of the Luddite Club wringing hands over privilege issues.
“Well, it’s classic to make people need smartphones too, right?” said Mr. Lane. “I think it’s a good conversation they’re having. There is no right answer.”
A few days later, as the Sunday meeting of the Luddite Club in Prospect Park drew to a close, a few teenagers put away their sketchbooks and dog-eared paperbacks while others put out a small fire they had started. It was Clementine Karlin-Pustilnik’s 17th birthday and to celebrate, the club wanted to take her out to dinner at a Thai restaurant on Fort Hamilton Parkway.
Night fell in the park as the teens walked in the cold and exchanged high school gossip. But there seemed to be tension in the air when the subject of university admissions came up. The club members exchanged updates on the schools they applied to across the country. Odille reported that he went to the State University of New York at Purchase.
“You could totally start a Luddite Club there, I bet,” said Elena Scherer, a Murrow senior.
They took a shortcut and turned onto a lonely path with no park lanterns. Their conversation came to life as they discussed Lewis Carroll’s poetry, Ravel’s piano compositions, and the evils of TikTok. Elena pointed to the night sky.
“Look,” she said. That’s a crescent moon. That means it’s going to get bigger.”
As they marched through the darkness, the only light glowing on their faces was that of the moon.