By Alexis Dalton
On a recent A-day, I walked into room 219, exchanged a few words with Mr. Newman, and was about to go to the Cafe when he stopped me and had the entire class give their attention to the SmartBoard. We “angled our screens down,” per Mr. Newman’s request, as he read us a New York Times article.
Every few classes, Mr. Newman reads us an article written by a professional journalist. He’s shown us articles about pretty much everything… from love bombing to college focus groups to red peppers. We never know what we are getting into.
I always find these articles very interesting. It’s nice to see how professionals write their pieces and then try to incorporate their techniques into my writing. But I also love hearing people’s opinions on all of these different topics.
As I was sitting in class, eager to leave so I could get a cookie from the Cafe, Mr. Newman pulled up a New York Times article titled “Luddite’ Teens Don’t Want Your Likes” with the subheading reading “When the only thing better than a flip phone is no phone at all.”
This caught my attention, and I almost immediately forgot about that cookie.
I strongly recommend you read the article, but here’s some context:
The Luddite Club is “a high school group that promotes a lifestyle of self-liberation from social media and technology” and was founded by Logan Lane, a Senior at Murrow High School in Brooklyn.
Logan explained to the NYT journalist Alex Vadukul that she would fantasize about throwing her iPhone into the Gowanus Canal. Logan’s parents insisted she carry a flip phone so they could. keep in contact with her, but she was resistant to the idea.
Vadukul notes that the club is named after Ned Ludd, the folkloric 18th-century English textile worker who smashed up a mechanized loom, inspiring others to take up his name and riot against industrialization.
Though I like the club’s general message of getting off of our iPhones and enjoying the “real world,” I think that it’s a bit extreme.
Full “self-liberation from technology” is unrealistic and close to impossible. Whether you want to admit it or not, we need our phones.
Our world has evolved to the point where if you don’t have a phone, you’re pretty much unreachable. I can’t think of a practical way to communicate with others efficiently without technology. Society moves so fast and is ever-changing. If you were to put away your phone for a day, you’d probably miss a week’s worth of information.
Missing out on info isn’t the only downside of getting rid of phones. It also poses huge safety risks. If you were alone and got hurt, what would you do? Send a carrier pigeon to the nearest hospital to fetch you an ambulance? Good luck with that.
Logan told Vadukul that “We’re not expecting everyone to have a flip phone. We just see a problem with mental health and screen use.”
This being said, I respect Logan’s and other Luddite Club member’s bravery in this commitment. I can say confidently, as I’m writing this article on my computer while listening to music on my phone, I would not be able to do what they are doing.
So would the Luddite Club be successful at Lovett?
I talked to some students around campus and asked their opinion on this anti-technology club. “I think that it’s a good idea if you chose to do it, but [getting rid of your phone] shouldn’t be forced on you,” one student said.
Another student said if Lovett had a Luddite Club, she would join it, but only ditch her technology for the hour-long meeting.
I decided to give up technology for a night, but it didn’t last. After just twenty minutes of being the sole member of the Luddite club in my house, I realized that I needed my computer to type an essay and my phone to listen to interview recordings for another one of my articles.
I walked downstairs to grab my phone and laptop and returned to my usual, non-luddite ways.
Sorry Logan Lane. I tried.
