Throughout the seventeen years of my life, I’ve had a cellphone for five of them. Just starting at 12 years old, I begged my parents to get me one – I finally received the iPhone 7 that was passed down from my sister. As the years went on, I familiarized myself with the cellphone and even iPad in some cases. I got adjusted to how each platform worked, how each app functioned. Each passing second, I spent on it, whether it was Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or even Pinterest itself. Throughout the years it has helped me connect in ways I couldn’t before, it has helped me even learn new things. Social media has many positives and negatives, but you have to ask yourself “Is social media good for me? Or “Is it distracting me from what I’m really doing?” or even “Am I spending every waking second on my phone?” These questions will help you determine if your phone is becoming an addiction or if it already is one.
You see, technology and social media has been developing for years and the first apple iPhone came out in 2007. Throughout time technology has evolved in such a way that it can count your steps, order food for you, or even speak to you without you speaking. The growth for change has been rapid, some even speaking about mental health and how it is connected. Younger generations, for example Generation Z. Have been noticing these changes. A small part of Generation Z has noticed what social media is doing to us. One group of Generation Z even formed a club called “The Luddite Teens”.
They are a group of teenagers from Brooklyn, New York. The club was named after a 19th century movement. The movement was against the industrial revolution of machinery; the employers wanted to take people’s jobs away and replace them with machines. A teacher even joined the club and spoke with the New York Times and said this: “I had been called a Luddite for years, probably since 2017, and it was not used in a positive way. It was very much derogatory. Luddites are often seen as anti-progress, backwards,” she says. A Luddite, she explains, is “someone who is against the abuse, not the use of technology.”
Many of the members discussed COVID and how that was the turning point, “During COVID, I kind of looked at my screen time and I was like, ‘Wow, I’m spending more than half of my time awake on my phone. Something needs to change.’ That was when they noticed that technology was taking over their life. The club has different members, some of them are even from different schools. They meet one day each week and talk, color, read, vlog, or other things kids are supposed to be doing.
Throughout my research I have learned that social media is a problem and has been for some time. I even plan on switching my own iPhone to a flip phone. As I learn more and
more about The Luddite Teens and even social media itself, I realize that maybe I don’t need my own phone – maybe I just need my own flip phone.
(Picture from: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/style/teens-social-media.html)
