"When I got my flip phone, things instantly changed.... I started using my brain. It made me observe myself as a person. I’ve been trying to write a book, too. It’s like 12 pages now."
Said Lola Shub, a senior at Essex Street Academy, quoted in "'Luddite' Teens Don’t Want Your Likes/When the only thing better than a flip phone is no phone at all" by Alex Vadukul (NYT).
The founder of the Luddite Club, Logan Lane, 17, said she got so consumed by social media during the lockdown that she put her iPhone "in a box." She started reading library books. She wrote something she called the "Luddite Manifesto."
At an all-ages punk show, she met a teen with a flip phone, and they bonded over their worldview. “She was just a freshman, and I couldn’t believe how well read she was,” Logan said. “We walked in the park with apple cider and doughnuts and shared our Luddite experiences. That was the first meeting of the Luddite Club.”...
Today, the club has about 25 members....
25 members and a lovely write-up in the NYT. The kids — and the NYT? — seem to find it adventuresome and quirky to go to the park and to read. Those seem like perfectly ordinary things to do, but maybe young people these days are so bonded to living through screens that it's a huge accomplishment — a breaking free — to put the phone down.
But other kids are attacking the club:
"One kid said it’s classist,” [a member named Julian] said. “I think the club’s nice, because I get 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 get backlash,” Logan replied. “The argument I’ve heard is we’re a bunch of rich kids and expecting everyone to drop their phones is privileged... I was really discouraged when I heard the classist thing and almost ready to say goodbye to the club,” she said. “I talked to my adviser, though, and he told me most revolutions actually start with people from industrious backgrounds, like Che Guevara. We’re not expecting everyone to have a flip phone. We just see a problem with mental health and screen use.”
Industrious backgrounds?? Did she mean "illustrious"? Anyway, it's funny that some kids wanting to break their attachment to phones came in for the criticism that they are "classist." I can only imagine how the other kids picked up the ability to detect classism and the nerve to call it out in their friends. It's sad that the Luddites easily conceded that their club is classist!
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My friends may not believe it easily, but I got rid of my smart phone. I have a flip phone now, just text and voice, and text is slow and painful, I hardly do it. And I have a GPS for my car and a computer at home. Works fine so far.
It's made an enormous different in the footprint that my phone occupies in my life.
I really wish people would stop glorifying McCandless. Seriously, dig a little deeper into this guy and what other people said about him, and to him, about his plan.
What a doofus. A doofus with a death wish. Mother nature provides.
All the poor redneck teens I know don’t seem to give a rat’s ass for your likes and whatnot. They go to a regular public school in Nowhere, Texas and will not be written up in the New York Times. What’s more, these redneck teens are pleasant, painfully polite and respectful, humble, and honest.
A teen’s instinct to be a contrarian is society’s built-in self correcting mechanism.
I’ve been trying to write a book, too. It’s like 12 pages now."
i'd LIKE to mock her for this.. But; when *i* was her age, i was trying to write a book, too..
I'd usually get about as far as a clever sounding title (which is something.. Not Much; but something)
"industrious backgrounds"
I expect she means something like "prosperous". Her critics would probably use a term like "privileged". Or "white".
If the silly little critters tried emulating Chris McCandless they’d just die even faster than he did. He at least tried to acclimate himself to life alone in the wilderness.
Could I live without a cell phone? For almost 70 years I did!
These days I can’t live without my cell phone, but only because when we bought our retirement home we did not get a land line. Silly to have both a land line plus a phone in my pocket.
Essex Street Academy seems like.. Quite the school!
Essex Street Academy is 275th of 542 high schools in the New York City Public Schools. Sounds Good?
Essex Street Academy is 680th of high schools in the New York City Metro area.
Essex Street Academy is 779th of high schools in the New York state.
Essex Street Academy is ranked #9,920 in the National Rankings.
So, there's LESS THAN 10 THOUSAND schools, that are better ranked than Essex Street Academy
I think their motto is: You Could Do Worse
i DO like, that these 'Luddites' have taken Chris McCandless as their ideal.
It is f'in' hilarious that anyone could make the argument that not buying and toting around with you an instrument whose price is nowadays in the high three or low four digits is "classist." Color me gobsmacked. You might as well argue that not owning a car is another social-status marker.
I seem to be immune from the smartphone allure. I have an iPhone, but I often leave it at home, and I certainly don't make use of most of its features. I use it when going out while my husband is away, or when I might need to call a cab. (B/c I don't own a car.)
They can be useful, these devices -- my husband certainly gets more mileage out of his than I do of mine -- but the people who treat them as a sort of artificial limb without which they would be unable to stand are, shall we say, deficient in humanity. This is, I think, what the inchoate complaint about "classism" really means. What if, despite all the immediate advantages, having every document in the world literally in your pocket doesn't actually make you any smarter? What if searching for a document w/o that extra limb leads you to other, different, unexpected places?
Maybe 35 years ago or so, I took a course in musicological library science from a man who probably knew as much about it as anyone alive. He sent me and my classmate (there were only two of us) all over the UC/Berkeley library system to find stuff. And what we found was often unexpected and wonderful. I particularly remember the day when we turned up a very rude bunch of catches (= rounds) from the 17th century, on microfiche, in the main library. Things with titles like "My man John had a thing that was long, and Mary had a thing that was hairy." (They are, it turns out, trying to repair a broom, though you might be forgiven for assuming otherwise!)
You just don't happen on anything like that when you're making a Google search. Ever. And not just because of the ribaldry, either.
Lots of us have read this book called "Into the Wild"
How many of you finished it?
Classist? To a lot of people these days, anything that's not-them is something-ist and wicked. Living like civilized people has come to be scorned rather than emulated. If everyone worked on developing a little class, there would be no need for the word "classist."
As someone who grew up in the Pleistocene, when telephones were wired to walls, computers took up an entire room and had printers for their outputs, and where if you wanted to research something, you had to go to the library, I am delighted by all of the things my smart phone can do. I have access to the sum of human knowledge in the palm of my hand. I can call or text anyone I know in the country and not have to pay extra for "long distance." I can see cool pictures that my friend took in San Juan, Puerto Rico today while on a cruise, or of a cousin with five generations of her family, via social media. A phone is a tool, which can be used for good or ill, and one that I would not willingly give up.
I have never owned a portable phone of any type or a pager.
Che Guevara was killed. So was the Into the Wild dude.
There is no substitute for street smarts.
Well yes and no to the idea. For years I was happy with a candy bar phone; used only for emergency calls etc--and I had danged few emergencies other than say the wife calling me to remind me to pick up milk at the store.
Then because cell phone reception is rotten in the hilly area where I live I got a Motorola Android cell phone that was wi fi centric, and set up a strong router in my home. Still didn't us it for much other than emergencies or calls home when I was on the road.
Then things changed; got new hearing aids that needed to be controlled by an app that was only available on Apple. So the phone has to come along with me to adjust hearing in different environments. Family sends texts and photos (I'd resisted getting in the Apple universe for a long time). Go into a big box store these days (tool, hardware, wine etc) and the store demands you download app so you can use it to find things.
But worst of all--this morning--I parked on the street in Old Town Pasadena to go into a local store. There was a perfectly good parking meter--I put quarters in it--and nothing hapened. If I want to park there, the only way I can pay for parking is through a smartphone app.
I agree that social media is not real life; but the government goombahs are now requiring y ou to have a smart phone--and use it--to pay for lots of things. Aargh!
My son, age 21 sold his iPhone about 5 months ago and has a flip phone. Getting a gps for Xmas as he is somewhat reliant on mapping software. Said he felt the smartphone was too much of a distraction. Printed boarding passes for recent travel and a few other adjustments. Got a new library card.
Wait until she finds out good ol' Che was a gay-hating psychopathic murderer.
Oh, I guess she won't.
I have a collection of typewriters (most manual) that I thoroughly enjoy using, and also a smart phone that I enjoy using. Why do people always have to make a big deal out of things? Oh, yeah, to get a write-up in Pravda.
"with people from industrious backgrounds, like Che Guevara"
Che Guevara? That's who this sad excuse of a teacher came up with as example, bourgeois yes, but also a mass murderer. Nice role models these kids are being steered toward.
A well read advisor might have referred to Orwell's 'Road to Wigan Pier' where he contrasts how the working class persistently subjected to petty inconvenience to the presumption of deference of the middle class.
This business of petty inconvenience and indignity, of being kept waiting about, of having to do everything at other people's convenience, is inherent in working-class life. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into * passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that " they " will never allow him to do this, that and the other. Once when I was hop-picking I asked the sweated pickers (they earn something under sixpence an hour) why they did not form a union. I was told immediately that " they " would never allow it. Who were " they " ? I asked. Nobody seemed to know; but evidently " they " were omnipotent.
A person of bourgeois origin goes through life with some expectation of getting what he wants, within reasonable limits. Hence the fact that in times of stress "educated " people tend to come to the front; they are no more gifted than the others and their " education " is generally quite useless in itself, but they are accustomed to a certain amount of deference and consequently have the cheek necessary to a commander.
--George Orwell, 'Road to Wigan Pier'
"with people from industrious backgrounds, like Che Guevara"
Che Guevara? That's who this sad excuse of a teacher came up with as example, bourgeois yes, but also a mass murderer. Nice role models these kids are being steered toward.
A well read advisor might have referred to Orwell's 'Road to Wigan Pier' where he contrasts how the working class persistently subjected to petty inconvenience to the presumption of deference of the middle class.
This business of petty inconvenience and indignity, of being kept waiting about, of having to do everything at other people's convenience, is inherent in working-class life. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into * passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that " they " will never allow him to do this, that and the other. Once when I was hop-picking I asked the sweated pickers (they earn something under sixpence an hour) why they did not form a union. I was told immediately that " they " would never allow it. Who were " they " ? I asked. Nobody seemed to know; but evidently " they " were omnipotent.
A person of bourgeois origin goes through life with some expectation of getting what he wants, within reasonable limits. Hence the fact that in times of stress "educated " people tend to come to the front; they are no more gifted than the others and their " education " is generally quite useless in itself, but they are accustomed to a certain amount of deference and consequently have the cheek necessary to a commander.
--George Orwell, 'Road to Wigan Pier'
Sad to see this project, Phonebloks, from near a decade ago was joined then killed by Google, but it does show the concept is possible and there are other project.
The idea crossed my mind when Apple threatened to ban Twitter. A simplified phone with telephone, texting, Twitter, podcasts and maybe Kindle could be popular if cheap. It'd need a camera. But everything is a module, just needing a modular build concept. And the Phoneblok was bulking in 2009, but not so much compared to the iPhone 13 today.
https://www.onearmy.earth/project/phonebloks
When working around the house earlier today I was listening to an old lecture by Alan Watts. He was talking about how everyone thought that Americans were materialistic. He said this was a false characterization that Americans were anti-materialists that by being hooked on television we avoided interactions in the material world. Solution was to go to parties and have orgies.
I hope they're not using "Into The Wild" as a blue print unless they're pursuing arrogance and stupidity.
I read that book. I even know the spot where the guy dropped him off. That kid had no idea how to survive in the wilderness. Alaska is full of people who do know but he was not one. I met a guy who taught school in Texas in winter and drove a tourist bus in Denali Park in summer. His sister was a homesteader. He helped her electrify her cabin that summer. She had a pack of huskies and did a dog sled race to the Yukon that winter.
Nice article. Nice kids.
Never got a Smartphone, only my...what is it...Alcatel yo.
“Petty indifference and indignity”.
The usual posture of the elites and also of government employees. Every graduate of the ivies, including Brown, dines out on indifference and petty indignity. HBS more so, and the Chicago Booth School less so. UPenn this way, that way.
"Lola Shub." Really? C'mon, somebody made that up.
Also--did she read "Into The Wild" all the way to the end?
I snark, but if there really is a movement to put down the phones, that's a good thing.
My earlier comment was intemperate. I retract it. I get so fed up with commies it's easy to waste feeling on them even though they're beneath contempt and, accordingly, beneath comment.
I can only imagine how the other kids picked up the ability to detect classism and the nerve to call it out in their friends. It's sad that the Luddites easily conceded that their club is classist!
We keep waiting for some well-liked person, across all the American divides, with enough prestige and authority, a kind of benevolent dictator who will say... give everybody eats.
Maybe such a person doesn't exist anymore.
I think we would all have been better off if Che had been a bit less industrious. Or murderous.
As for disposing of the smart phone, we all need to figure out what works for us. If the smart phone makes you unhappy or unproductive, find something else. Makes sense to me.
Also, the key to becoming a good writer is to write a lot. Most likely the book that has 12 pages will be full of cringe and considered embarrassing at a later date, but the way to good writing is paved with bad writing. I approve.
I’m happy I grew up in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Tech was simple and didn’t dominate our lives. We played outside until the street lights came on and went home to do our homework. Kids today have more computing power in their pocket than was needed to send men to the moon but use this miracle of human achievement to send twerking videos on tiktok.
I love my smart phone for the same reasons Clyde posted.
At my workplace, they have a Task List tied to HotSchedules. It's one of those "don't necessarily do your job, just document that you did it". It's irritating but I do it more often than I forget it. But the other day I started getting emails from that app alerting me that some of the tasks were overdue. I was at home and "off the clock". The nerve! I marked them all as spam and after a second round of them, I don't see them anymore as they are probably where they belong -- in the spam folder. I don't mind my boss calling or texting me about something. She's cool and we need the communication and she doesn't mind me texting her with a question or reminder. I've never been a clock watcher but don't expect me to do work-related things off the clock after hours or on my day off.
I have written one book that if it was not done in small segments with loads of different characters, it would not ever have been finished. I just cannot do plots by myself. My in-progress autobiography is really just a collection of reminisces and recollections which make it easier to write. My dad did the same but on his computer and abandoned it when my mom died. A year before he turned 80, my sister went to his home and raided his hard drive for the essays and stories. We added photos, our own essays about him and invited the grandchildren to write something also. My sister, younger brother and I put together an 80 page book and presented it to him on his 80th birthday. He cried tears of happiness and said it was the best birthday gift he ever had received. We gave soft-cover editions to every member of the family.
He deserved it. He was a great father.
Marcus B. THEOLDMAN
The only way to write is to do it. As often as possible. It doesn't have to be great. You can come back and re-write. At some point you may have a book. Or not. Depends on your talent and skill. There have been MANY books I've picked up that might be far worse in readable material.
BTW, referencing "Into The Wild" is stupid and any mention of Che leads me to think you are not a smart person.
Having said that, if you want to give up a technological device for whatever reason, go for it. I didn't read the article, but as long as she is not going on and on about how that makes her better than those of us with smart phones, I have no quibble with it. And, there is nothing in that decision that makes her "classist".
Marcus B. THEOLDMAN
Michael K said...
I spent the better part of a summer canoeing and treking by myself in some of the wilder parts of Ontario. I had extensive training on survival and I'd still stop and ask about the trail or portage ahead and what was in season along the trail. He was arrogant. That made him stupid.
Cute girls in the photos. Hopefully now some boys show up at the next meeting. (But probably teenage boys don't read NYT, even on their phones.) But not auspicious season for hanging out in Prospect Park. Ironic they meet up on steps of amazing Brooklyn Public Library. It's possibly endangered by smart phones.
"When I got my flip phone, things instantly changed.... I started using my brain. It made me observe myself as a person. I’ve been trying to write a book, too. It’s like 12 pages now."
This person is extremely shallow. They think that stating this will make them look enlightened. (And will get them the same ego boost that they got from all their friends liking their stuff on social media.) I had a flip phone for years but I finally had to get a smart phone for work related stuff. I'm still the same basic person, I still see myself as a person and I still use my brain. Plus, if I were to start to write a book, I could knock out more than 12 pages in a single day.
Ah, the prejudiced, cosseted dolt products of the elite educated classes. Like all these fools, including the idiots I know whose teaching at Emory taught him to feel nothing but contempt for the many good forestry and police who tried to convince him to leave before winter, then had to risk their lives looking for him because he had been so violently, Marxistly educated to despise common sense.
This part is left out of the Wikipedia and movie versions. Of course.
Higher education's lies are what taught him to despise "lower class" people and common sense. He died from prejudice and stupidity. May many of his followers avoid the same fate, but if not, it's on what they were taught by leftist parents and in school.
Also Guevara was from an elite Irish and Catalan family. He accessed higher education and became murderous and radicalized. He was a brutal assassin who knew -- very ironically in this case -- how to use the technologies of the media to create a pretend persona of rebellion based on American movie stars and dull beat writers canonized by the intellectuals.
As he slaughtered people and partnered with dictators including Castro and Stalin to oppress and disappear the actually productive middle and working classes.
These kids don't need smart phones. They have New York Times propagandists' writing about them on smartphones. They're like Marie Antoinette playing milkmaid.
And, why aren't the police arresting this girl for vandalism of public property? She admits in the Times that through her "luddite" network she began defacing subway cars with spraypaint as part of her new ideology. How is this different from ghetto kids facing RICO lawsuits for coordinated crime?
Mommy and daddy.
Is she too privileged to be arrested? Why haven't her parents and teachers turned her in to the police? How can she get into a taxpayer-funded college while openly admitting to crimes that cost decent and non-elite taxpayers money to repair?
It's high-class to generate but not deny 'classist' accusations, isn't it?
I'd expect resentment from those whose non-socmedia environment isn't as rich, but mostly just resentment at being told the right way to live isn't yours. 'To each his own' does fine as a reply, but you have to drop the evangelism to really have your own thing, simply.
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