Daryn Jones is a digital artifact. At age 17 the Sacramento high school student isn’t on social media and doesn’t even have a smartphone. Jones is part of the growing rebellion of teenagers in America known as the new Luddites.
The term Luddite, is taken from the 19th century English textile worker movement who destroyed technology that was taking their jobs. Like the technophobic traditionalists that went before them, 21st century Luddite teens see technology as something dangerous to be avoided.
REBEL WITHOUT A CELLPHONE
One might say that the trend of turning off tech is trending among GenZ. Sacramento is the latest city in the US, including New York and Chicago, to have a large following of Luddites who meet in public parks with phones turned off (if they even have one). Scattered in small groups or on their own under the shade of trees, the teens read books, discuss poetry, paint, draw, or just sit and think.
Early mornings on Saturdays, some twenty teens can be seen randomly scattered around Southside Park doing the sort of things people used to do in public parks, read, talk and socialize in person.
“I used to spend a lot of time on my iPhone, scrolling youtube for memes,” says Jones looking up from a battered second hand copy of Moby Dick.
Jones started coming to the park in July after a friend told him about the informal club last year. His phone didn’t last much longer after that.
“After the pandemic I was basically sick of technology. Online classes, online Christmas, online friends. So back in August, I told my Mom that I was deleting all my online accounts and didn’t want my phone. She didn’t get it at first and made me take her old flip phone for emergencies.”
HITTING DA CLUB
Jones meets with his Luddite club every Saturday and whenever he can after school. He says that this is the only place where he feels he can be his ‘true self’ and experience with others ‘what it means to be human.’
“At school, my friends are constantly on their phones. Snapchat, insta, TikTok. I don’t know how I even got by with all those distractions before,” smiles Jones who now reads two novels a week and is learning to play the piano from a set of instructional records he bought at a thrift store.
The Southside Park Luddite club, which is a word of mouth informal gathering, brings together like-minded teens like Becca Dawson who have already or want to ditch high-tech technology and experience the world around them.
Curled up under the shade of a weeping willow, Dawson tells GWU! That her “new found loss of technology” is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Removing her over sized wired earphones connected to a battered second hand yellow Sanyo cassette walkman Dawson explains how she became a Luddite.
“I was getting headaches all the time and the eye doctor said it was probably from all the gaming and stuff that I was doing. My dad made me go cold turkey on technology. I hated him for it, at first,” smirks 15- year-old Dawson.
DONE WITH DOOM SCROLLING
“But the headaches did go away. And I heard at school about kids that weren’t on social at all. It sounded appealing. Now I couldn’t imagine being tied to my laptop and phone like before. What a fucking waste of time that corporations want out of you. Who wants to spend their time basically programming AI, being tracked and feeding the algorithm companies use to market their junk to you?”
Jones agrees with Dawson.
“The other kids get it. They also used to waste time on their phones and play video games late into the night. It was a pointless way to spend time. We’re working together on making a philosophy zine together now. It’s all handwritten and the layout is cut and paste. Then we’ll photocopy it, and leave copies in libraries and bookstores. This is how young people use to share ideas. Classic retro publishing.”
