I admire the hell out of these kids. If I had a little more strength in my own convictions, a little more willpower, I would probably go flip-phone only too.
Yes, they're kind of posturing and pretentious, but in ways that remind me of myself in high school; I feel like I get them. Your average high school kid is a lot more confusing to me these days.
I did have to laugh at this:
> "I talked to my adviser, though, and he told me most revolutions actually start with people from industrious backgrounds, like Che Guevara."
I wasn't sure what they meant by "industrious backgrounds"; apparently it means "wealthy" based on Guevara's wikipedia page. She's in good company, though... Ho Chi Minh and Lenin grew up privileged too.
On a personal note, it's also something that worries me for the day when I'll finally have my own children.
I wouldn't want them exposed to modern cyber-addictions from young age, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to protect them, when I can expect that all their peers will be on whatever social app's gonna be popular at that time.
This is interesting but I can't help but notice how intensely performative these kids are as well, at least how they're characterized in this article. They're wearing Carhartt (an unusual choice for a metropolis like NYC), reading Dostoyevski and gathering to "listen to the wind." I will say most teens are like this and I certainly was myself, but I hope they are careful not to cultivate their own "artisan" brand of snobbishness (as I also did as a young punk).
One thread they're touching on that I think is healthy and good is the DIY aesthetic, and the resistance to tools and media that primarily serve to make you a passive consumer, and to choose and live ones values more consciously & proactively. These features are (or ate least were) prominent in the punk scene, but also in many other subcultures including many religious groups.
I am glad to see "the kids" continuing to question & challenge and try to take more control of their own lives, so this is great in my opinion. A bit of pretentiousness is a small price to pay in my opinion.
I think there's a selection bias here; the ones who are performative are more likely to cross paths with a NYTimes journalist than the ones who aren't. People who keep it low key don't often rise to the notice of others.
While there’s definitely a performative aspect to it, I think there’s a genuine & sincere interest in rejecting social-media manufactured-reality. These teens, regardless of sincerity, are rejecting a demonstrably negative & harmful activity in favor of reading, art, music, & engaging with their local community. I’m thrilled that this is catching on at all. I’ve had a deep hatred of owning a smartphone for years, but always feel like I need it (slack & email for work, immediate news/link aggregation, etc.), so I’m jealous/happy that they’ve gotten a head start at rejecting it outright so young.
I think they're no more performative than other teenagers, who are almost developmentally predisposed to be preoccupied with in- and outgroup signaling.
>This is interesting but I can't help but notice how intensely performative these kids are as well, at least how they're characterized in this article.
I mean, they are teenagers. I said this in a longer comment in this thread, but teenagers tend to be performative. That's sort of the point of growing up and finding yourself.
> They're wearing Carhartt (an unusual choice for a metropolis like NYC), reading Dostoyevski and gathering to "listen to the wind."
I don't know, to me it all seemed exceedingly genuine. If they're spending lots of time outside in parks—"rain or shine, even snow"—their clothing choices make sense. They like reading, and their reading material has made an impression (as good books are wont to do, especially for impressionable teenagers), such as by convincing them of the value of activities like "listening to the wind".
In many ways the article feels like it's documenting kids with the freedom to have an opinion. Looking at the pictures in the article, it feels like a pretty uniform demographic. And in New York City, no less.
Also, they idolize Chris McCandless - he was also a child of privilege who wanted to reject society. Chris didn't have to die but he did because he went up to Alaska woefully unprepared. That doesn't make his death any less tragic, of course.
I guess my point is that this phenomenon is not anything new, if anything we've just gotten for enough into the 21st century that the 1970s ethic is making a comeback.
Does one always risk a bit of "pretentiousness" if they act/live contrary to the "main stream"? Just by having a flip phone, for example, someone will be called a "hipster" or whatever name. It's like a group social phenomena or something - just by being vegetarian (or being more "pretentious" by being vegan) people experience this sort of stuff
Didn't read the article, but I wish I had friends who made listening to the wind an activity growing up. There's a lot of performance any direction you take, surrendering time to the elements is a lovely little angle.
> This is interesting but I can't help but notice how intensely performative these kids are as well, at least how they're characterized in this article. They're wearing Carhartt (an unusual choice for a metropolis like NYC), reading Dostoyevski and gathering to "listen to the wind." I will say most teens are like this and I certainly was myself, but I hope they are careful not to cultivate their own "artisan" brand of snobbishness (as I also did as a young punk).
Also, does the NYT Style section have a reputation of elevating some tiny little clique into a "trend" that goes nowhere because it's not a real trend, just a clique that got written about?
I'd love for something like this to be an actual trend (sans the snobbish performance), but I'm skeptical this anything at all.
it's the 2022 version of "kill your television" and i love it.
in practice: i wonder how practical it is to survive as an adult without a smartphone. uber has decimated cabs and i don't think you can telephone for an uber.
i wonder what else is unreachable/unworkable/etc...
I'm old and I love the Carhartt tee shirts I bought a few years ago...thick cotton, softened through wear and washing, the best shirts I've ever owned. These kids have good taste.
Having read the rest of TFA I think my initial reaction is not fair. What they said about kids not being able to put the phones down for a 1hr meeting was surprising to me and made clear how bad the issue is. More power to these kids and to heck with people calling them classist; what are they obligated to have iPhones for the sake of class solidarity or something? Sounds silly.
Carhartt isn't unsusual at all, it's trendy and has been adopted as streetwear.
And I think you're overthinking the performative aspect, it's bog standard teenage behavior that diminishes over time but persists forever. Every branded piece of apparel, every vanity plate, all interior decorating are in the same performative vein.
I do think it's a significant price to pay. While a lot of teens are indeed like this, plenty aren't, and I'd (admittedly without evidence) guess that there's actually a negative correlation between wanting to be part of such a performative group and liking the idea behind the group to the extent of being willing to participate in it and make "sacrifices" for doing so. Maybe it's just personal bias but back when I was a teen, I'd have loved the idea behind it but definitely not joined it for that reason. Especially as a teen, being the only one not participating in the aesthestic would made me feel left out.
Can't say that I love the praise over Chris McCandless, given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage and the fact that hikers have literally died trying to recreate his pilgrimage.
> We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And [McCandless] was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life.
I'm nitpicking, just think there are way healthier examples. Overall I love the mentality and really hope the next generation or two embraces a major shift away from tech addiction. Feels like growing pains from head-spinningly rapid technological innovation and availability.
What people describe as "tech addiction" is I think better described as "consumer product addiction".
Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to turn the world into a human friendly imaginative playground.
That opportunity is squandered by people who think in the short term about control and money and status and grievance.
Call me what you will, but I have a hard time watching old videos like this and not getting emotional -> https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 Great engineers using the most advanced technology of the day to make childhood fantasies a reality is one of the most beautiful uses of our time on Earth I can think of. Tech could make the world the ultimate fantasy adventure. We have so much capacity to alleviate material want and create amazing dreamworlds and make people happy, but laziness, greed, ego, jealousy, and resentment all get in the way.
Technological complexity obfuscates and entrenches a lot of existing problems and creates lots of room for abuse, but at root most modern problems are not fundamentally tech related. They're rooted in our difficulties cooperating with each other.
I never got the impression that it was deliberate self sabotage. I understood that he simply had over confidence going into the woods, and that he stayed a bit too long in an unfamiliar area and consequently couldn’t make his way back due to snowmelt flooding.
"They marched up a hill toward their usual spot, a dirt mound located far from the park’s crowds. Among them was Odille Zexter-Kaiser, a senior at Edward R. Murrow High School in Midwood, who trudged through leaves in Doc Martens and mismatched wool socks."
Wow, these kids sound like the new beatniks.
"The club members cite libertine writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac as heroes,"
I've been experimenting with a "no phone" protocol for a few months now. It has been amazing. Only occasionally problematic/inconvenient, mostly miss the GPS and music. Most things I used to do on phone I simply do on a laptop. But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless.
The next step after this epiphany is to realize you can do this without actually giving up the phone. Just because it's in your pocket doesn't mean you need to pull it out constantly and look at it. It's just a tool, relegate it to that position in your life and don't use it like a pacifier.
I still use a small mp3 player - no video just a tiny digital display. They're so superior to any smart phone for actually playing music. Tiny, fits in any pocket easily, volume and be adjusted and tracks changed without looking at it...
It's possible to argue that dispensing with the habit of carrying and using a music player is also a potential win. What's one of the reasons smartphones can be a problem? That they distract and disconnect you from your environment and absorb you in something other than what's around you. Music players can also do that. If you turn the music off, it'll open your ears to the sounds of your environment. If you try it for an extended period of time, you may develop a greater attentiveness and auditory acuteness.
Each of these devices, while not bad on its own and in itself, does provide an opportunity for the device to lay claim to one or more of our senses. The multiverse is a step further in that direction, a further bubble of engineered experience disconnected from reality and yes almost posing as reality. This does not bode well for the intellect as nothing in the intellect was not first in the senses. Our intuitions are at their best when seeded by the passive experience of the world, and if our experience is constantly flooded by media and engineered simulations often of a very unhealthy variety, then our alignment with reality will be off. This sort of passive perception of reality is at the heart of contemplation which is what true leisure (not recreation) is all about.
To quote Josef Pieper[0], "the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul."
One of the big things keeping me from going down this road is the need to carry around a phone for 2FA purposes. Is there anything that can fill that gap?
I mostly go phoneless if at all possible. I use an old ipod nano for music. It's much better at it than the phone because it is so tiny and thin (and has a headphone jack).
Its great that people are starting to wane off algorithmic money maximizing social media, but you can do this without switching to a flip phone.
Just remove all social media and you will be set, even chat apps are OK, its really the rapid attention grabbing content that is the issue.
Also the books and the weird connection to wanting to stop the industrial revolution is just r/im14andthisisdeep material
> “I still long to have no phone at all,” she said. “My parents are so addicted. My mom got on Twitter, and I’ve seen it tear her apart. But I guess I also like it, because I get to feel a little superior to them.”
If this is a real thing then maybe I feel there is hope for at least a small pocket of society. Good on them for taking back some control of their lives. Color me impressed.
I'm glad, some teens are doing this, I hope it become a mainstream trend. It's marvelous that each generation question everything and start this type of counter-trends. I have three young kids and I do my best to keep them away from smartphones. This gives me hope that my older daughter, when she becomes a teenager, will not ask me for a smartphone.
A simple tip to reduce usage. I would guess that a lot of smartphone usage happens within your home, which most people spent a lot of time in, even more so if you work from home.
Put the phone in the next room. As simple as that. Break the convenience of having it with you. Working in a home office? Put it in the next room. Watching TV on the couch? Put it in the next room. Driving? Don't mount it.
You'll still check it, during natural progressions of the day. Lunch. End of the work day. Before you go to bed. But that's still quite a lot better than the 100-200 times that people check it per day on average.
IMO the real problem here isn't the technology itself, but cultivating an unhealthy relationship with it and not using it maturely
The most interesting thing in this article to me is the classist accusation. I wonder if this luddite trend is just some sort of counter signaling, where if rich kids decide to not use smartphones it's provocative (and they get flip phones from parents on a whim), but if poor kids don't it's because they're poor
When I was a teen in the nineties it was the teens who really got computers and the adults who were the luddites. Being into computers wasn't cool but it was exciting to understand something that most of our parents didn't. Seems like things have come full circle now! As much as I admire the rejection of social media I hope this generation can still be fascinated by the possibilities computers can bring.
So many of these NYT pieces are a character study framed as though it were describing a small part of a larger movement. I'd like this sentiment to be widespread and robust among the upcoming generation of young adults, but will it be? It's difficult to believe.
I was at a coffee shop yday and made the mistake of sitting next to their huge decked up christmas tree. Wasn't crowded but there was a constant stream of teen girls shooting selfie with the tree. Each one taking literally hundreds of pics to get the 'right' one.
[+] [-] Kaibeezy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] floren|3 years ago|reply
Yes, they're kind of posturing and pretentious, but in ways that remind me of myself in high school; I feel like I get them. Your average high school kid is a lot more confusing to me these days.
I did have to laugh at this:
> "I talked to my adviser, though, and he told me most revolutions actually start with people from industrious backgrounds, like Che Guevara."
I wasn't sure what they meant by "industrious backgrounds"; apparently it means "wealthy" based on Guevara's wikipedia page. She's in good company, though... Ho Chi Minh and Lenin grew up privileged too.
[+] [-] Archipelagia|3 years ago|reply
On a personal note, it's also something that worries me for the day when I'll finally have my own children.
I wouldn't want them exposed to modern cyber-addictions from young age, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to protect them, when I can expect that all their peers will be on whatever social app's gonna be popular at that time.
[+] [-] sequoia|3 years ago|reply
One thread they're touching on that I think is healthy and good is the DIY aesthetic, and the resistance to tools and media that primarily serve to make you a passive consumer, and to choose and live ones values more consciously & proactively. These features are (or ate least were) prominent in the punk scene, but also in many other subcultures including many religious groups.
I am glad to see "the kids" continuing to question & challenge and try to take more control of their own lives, so this is great in my opinion. A bit of pretentiousness is a small price to pay in my opinion.
[+] [-] LarryMullins|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rychco|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cardamomo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] filmgirlcw|3 years ago|reply
I mean, they are teenagers. I said this in a longer comment in this thread, but teenagers tend to be performative. That's sort of the point of growing up and finding yourself.
[+] [-] headbee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Wowfunhappy|3 years ago|reply
I don't know, to me it all seemed exceedingly genuine. If they're spending lots of time outside in parks—"rain or shine, even snow"—their clothing choices make sense. They like reading, and their reading material has made an impression (as good books are wont to do, especially for impressionable teenagers), such as by convincing them of the value of activities like "listening to the wind".
[+] [-] belfalas|3 years ago|reply
Also, they idolize Chris McCandless - he was also a child of privilege who wanted to reject society. Chris didn't have to die but he did because he went up to Alaska woefully unprepared. That doesn't make his death any less tragic, of course.
I guess my point is that this phenomenon is not anything new, if anything we've just gotten for enough into the 21st century that the 1970s ethic is making a comeback.
[+] [-] dieselgate|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdwr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tablespoon|3 years ago|reply
Also, does the NYT Style section have a reputation of elevating some tiny little clique into a "trend" that goes nowhere because it's not a real trend, just a clique that got written about?
I'd love for something like this to be an actual trend (sans the snobbish performance), but I'm skeptical this anything at all.
[+] [-] a-dub|3 years ago|reply
in practice: i wonder how practical it is to survive as an adult without a smartphone. uber has decimated cabs and i don't think you can telephone for an uber.
i wonder what else is unreachable/unworkable/etc...
[+] [-] heavyset_go|3 years ago|reply
It also might be you projecting. It's entirely possible they genuinely enjoy their choice of clothing and literature and it's not a performance.
[+] [-] parker_mountain|3 years ago|reply
It's not really, it's become a pretty fashionable brand in urban areas. Basically a combination of work wear and basic REI aesthetic.
[+] [-] themadturk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sequoia|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] subpixel|3 years ago|reply
And I think you're overthinking the performative aspect, it's bog standard teenage behavior that diminishes over time but persists forever. Every branded piece of apparel, every vanity plate, all interior decorating are in the same performative vein.
[+] [-] maeil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the-printer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaroninsf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] browningstreet|3 years ago|reply
None of his classmates care one way or the other.
It's all good.
[+] [-] huehehue|3 years ago|reply
> We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And [McCandless] was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life.
I'm nitpicking, just think there are way healthier examples. Overall I love the mentality and really hope the next generation or two embraces a major shift away from tech addiction. Feels like growing pains from head-spinningly rapid technological innovation and availability.
[+] [-] didericis|3 years ago|reply
Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to turn the world into a human friendly imaginative playground.
That opportunity is squandered by people who think in the short term about control and money and status and grievance.
Call me what you will, but I have a hard time watching old videos like this and not getting emotional -> https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 Great engineers using the most advanced technology of the day to make childhood fantasies a reality is one of the most beautiful uses of our time on Earth I can think of. Tech could make the world the ultimate fantasy adventure. We have so much capacity to alleviate material want and create amazing dreamworlds and make people happy, but laziness, greed, ego, jealousy, and resentment all get in the way.
Technological complexity obfuscates and entrenches a lot of existing problems and creates lots of room for abuse, but at root most modern problems are not fundamentally tech related. They're rooted in our difficulties cooperating with each other.
[+] [-] voisin|3 years ago|reply
I never got the impression that it was deliberate self sabotage. I understood that he simply had over confidence going into the woods, and that he stayed a bit too long in an unfamiliar area and consequently couldn’t make his way back due to snowmelt flooding.
[+] [-] freemanofthewan|3 years ago|reply
Wow, these kids sound like the new beatniks.
"The club members cite libertine writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac as heroes,"
and there's Jack..
[+] [-] LucyEverylove|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 543g43g43|3 years ago|reply
And once the spell is broken, you find yourself staring at people stumbling around, tied to their tiny screens.
[+] [-] LAC-Tech|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lo_zamoyski|3 years ago|reply
Each of these devices, while not bad on its own and in itself, does provide an opportunity for the device to lay claim to one or more of our senses. The multiverse is a step further in that direction, a further bubble of engineered experience disconnected from reality and yes almost posing as reality. This does not bode well for the intellect as nothing in the intellect was not first in the senses. Our intuitions are at their best when seeded by the passive experience of the world, and if our experience is constantly flooded by media and engineered simulations often of a very unhealthy variety, then our alignment with reality will be off. This sort of passive perception of reality is at the heart of contemplation which is what true leisure (not recreation) is all about.
To quote Josef Pieper[0], "the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul."
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/408300-happiness-and-c...
[+] [-] null0ranje|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Unbeliever69|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjav|3 years ago|reply
I mostly go phoneless if at all possible. I use an old ipod nano for music. It's much better at it than the phone because it is so tiny and thin (and has a headphone jack).
For GPS my watch (Garmin) has GPS.
[+] [-] SN76477|3 years ago|reply
Somehow we have placed all of our faith in these devices.
[+] [-] rr888|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacooper|3 years ago|reply
Just remove all social media and you will be set, even chat apps are OK, its really the rapid attention grabbing content that is the issue.
Also the books and the weird connection to wanting to stop the industrial revolution is just r/im14andthisisdeep material
> “I still long to have no phone at all,” she said. “My parents are so addicted. My mom got on Twitter, and I’ve seen it tear her apart. But I guess I also like it, because I get to feel a little superior to them.”
This is an interesting way to put it.
[+] [-] LinuxBender|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falcolas|3 years ago|reply
It’s not a choice I’ll make (I lived that life without a choice for several decades; I’m good), but I still like that they can.
[+] [-] mromanuk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fleddr|3 years ago|reply
Put the phone in the next room. As simple as that. Break the convenience of having it with you. Working in a home office? Put it in the next room. Watching TV on the couch? Put it in the next room. Driving? Don't mount it.
You'll still check it, during natural progressions of the day. Lunch. End of the work day. Before you go to bed. But that's still quite a lot better than the 100-200 times that people check it per day on average.
[+] [-] spritefs|3 years ago|reply
The most interesting thing in this article to me is the classist accusation. I wonder if this luddite trend is just some sort of counter signaling, where if rich kids decide to not use smartphones it's provocative (and they get flip phones from parents on a whim), but if poor kids don't it's because they're poor
[+] [-] fancyfredbot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psychphysic|3 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/xx5t5ps-bwc
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ydlr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neonate|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gsatic|3 years ago|reply
I was at a coffee shop yday and made the mistake of sitting next to their huge decked up christmas tree. Wasn't crowded but there was a constant stream of teen girls shooting selfie with the tree. Each one taking literally hundreds of pics to get the 'right' one.