In the time of your life, live. –William Saroyan, American Writer
Ned Ludd is alive and well.
Not bad for someone who might not ever have existed.
You may not have heard of him, but I’ll bet you know of the people who have, to one degree or another, been lumped under his name.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes “Luddite” as: “One of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest. Broadly: One who is opposed especially to technological change.”
In a screen-heavy world – a situation exacerbated by the global pandemic – a number of folks are returning to the analog world. Flip phones, vinyl records, audio tape cassettes, and vintage typewriters have all gained in popularity of late. This surge of interest in the physical and the actual stems in many cases from a surprising demographic: Gen Z.
Alex Vadukul wrote about this development in a 2022 New York Times article. Vadukul described “a group of teenage tech skeptics from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn and a few other schools in the city [who] gathered on weekends in Prospect Park to enjoy some time together away from the machine.” The piece garnered a massive amount of attention…and a follow-up story in the January 30, 2025, edition of the Times. Those high school kids are now in college. Vadukul wondered: “Did they stay on the Luddite path? Or were they dragged back into the tech abyss?” He spoke with several of the founders of the Murrow High School group. Vadukul writes:
They said they still had disdain for social media platforms and the way they ensnare young people, pushing them to create picture-perfect online identities that have little to do with their authentic selves. They said they still relied on flip phones and laptops, rather than smartphones, as their main concessions to an increasingly digital world. And they reported that their movement was growing, with offshoots at high schools and colleges in Seattle, West Palm Beach, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, South Bend, Indiana, and Washington, D.C.
These neo-Luddites admit that navigating a minimum-tech life isn’t always easy. Biruk Watling, who’s currently attending Temple University, tries to balance her principles with her desire for safety.
“Raves are big in Philly…You can end up in the middle of nowhere in some abandoned building for the rave everyone’s going to. I can’t go if I don’t know I’ll get home safely.”
She’d purchased an Android.
“I own this now with a sense of inner torture…but I have to look out for my well-being as a young woman. It’s too risky for me to put my life in the hands of a flip phone.”
Some of the Murrow High School gang have rejoined the digital world. Lola Shub told Vadukul: “When I had the flip phone, I had to put in effort to get to places, to talk to people. Everything was a task. Now it’s easy to do things. I guess I still don’t like needing the crutch of a smartphone, though I couldn’t figure out how to go on without one.”
Vadukul learned from a current member of the Murrow group that the club had died shortly after his initial article; the attention destroyed its street cred. It’s been reconstituted, however, and is thriving.
It’s easy to understand why. As Jameson Butler put it: “Youth is being wasted on those of us who are constantly on our phones. We’re only young once.”
Technology’s not going anywhere, but that’s not the point, really. What matters is that we use technology consciously. Easiest isn’t always best. Convenience can be overrated. Engage with what’s real and don’t merely observe it through a technological scrim.
The writer William Saroyan once urged: “In the time of your life, live – so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”
You won’t find that experience on a screen…
