US teens exploring world outside social media

Everything is constantly available through a smartphone. Three in four people in Generation Z - roughly, people born after 1997 - are said to spend too much time on their phones.

On average, people check their phones 58 times per day. And almost 30 phone checks occur during work hours.

Picking your phone up can become a habit as data shows that half of all screen time sessions begin within three minutes of the last check, according to software company Exploding Topics.

The rejection of smartphones and social media is a radically counter-cultural move when the world is carried in our pockets, especially to kids.

For decades similar New Year's resolutions have topped the list: lose weight, quit smoking, become rich. However, in recent years a new resolution has joined the ranks: a desire to break up with social media, or at least to spend less time on it.

In this episode of digital hygiene, I take a look at the hope that some teens might be able to self-regulate smartphone use.

Luddite is a blanket term used broadly to describe individuals or groups who dislike new technology and oppose technological change.

At its origins in the beginning of the 19th century Luddism was not about technology's evils. It was about worker rights and a fear of job losses.

Most luddites were trained artisans, who spent years learning their craft, and they railed against the ways that mechanized manufactures and unskilled laborers undermined their livelihoods.

In November 1811, the labor movement of the Luddite group of weavers and craftsmen for the destruction of the textile machinery began in Nottingham and spread to Yorkshire, Lancashire and Leicestershire.

A couple of hundreds of years later the Luddite Club was founded in Brooklyn in 2022, with a group of New York City teens meeting in a park or at a local public library and with one rule - no smartphones, no TikTok, no Instagram. These high school teenagers have disavowed modern smartphone technology and ditched social media. They feel technology is consuming too much of their lives.

Logan Lane, 17, is the founder of the Luddite Club. It had recruited 25 members by the end of last year.

According to the 2022 Media Use and Attitudes Report by the United Kingdom's Office of Communications, more than 62 percent of kids aged from three to 16 had their own profile on at least one social media app or site in 2021, rising to more than 94 percent of youngsters aged 16 and 17.

When Lane first shut off her phone she didn't know what to do because of the connected culture with her smartphone. But she persisted to go offline and discovered her time could be used creatively.

Lane is now early to bed, early to rise. She always has a book for her subway commutes. She is more engaged in school. She's writing journals, running and making clothes.

A year ago, Lane met 16-year-old Jameson Butler at a party where they bonded over not having smartphones. They started hanging out, and the Luddite Club was born.

The Brooklyn group is in favor of flip phones, person-to-person communications and real life social connections. Sometimes they even complain their parents are miserable because they spend too much time on Twitter.

Luddite-citing teenagers hope more people will reflect on the addictive nature of technology and give stepping back a try by talking to their parents, reading books and learning to observe.

Dr Jolly Wong is a policy fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge