The Summer of Ludd, an anti-smartphone festival held in New York, celebrated offline fun with events like "Google in Real Life" and "flirting rehabilitation," but crowds were small, according to the Economist. The festival, which banned phones, recording, and photos, was advertised via wheatpasted monochrome posters and featured a media spokespuppet named Gowanus.
Neo-luddite movement gains traction
A broader neo-luddite movement is growing, with gen Z prioritizing in-person socializing and old-fashioned hobbies. Groups like Offline Club and New York University's IRL initiative create phone-free spaces to combat smartphone addiction. Emma Beddington's gen Z sons use paper diaries, CDs, and hobbies like playing instruments and embroidery, and one uses a Brick device to block time-sucking apps.
This trend is coupled with stark techno-pessimism warning of AI-driven oblivion and smartphone surveillance. Critics argue tech companies engage in "systematic fracking of human beings," extracting attention for profit. While the extinction fears may be overblown, the concerns about attention extraction are increasingly validated.
Pre-smartphone life: dangerous and lonely
Beddington, a Guardian columnist, recalls the perils of life before smartphones. Navigating with giant map books and handwritten directions made driving dangerous. In 1995, getting home from a nightclub in Normandy meant riding with a drunk driver. "I survived thanks to luck alone," she writes.
Loneliness was also rampant. Those who were awkward, ill, or geographically isolated often lacked connection. Beddington spent years feeling unlikable until the blogosphere and Twitter enriched her life. "My life blossomed in the ‘blogosphere’ and on Twitter," she states.
Boredom was a constant companion
Boredom defined much of Beddington's adolescence. She spent Saturday nights watching Casualty with her mother, noting that "boredom is good for you" is easier said than experienced. The Summer of Ludd may be harder to sustain in winter when it's rainy, cold, and dark.
Beddington acknowledges the neo-luddites are right to fight for less screen time, but switching off is challenging, especially for her generation, which vividly remembers both before and after smartphones. "The world opened up in wild, digital Technicolor in the palms of our hands," she concludes.
