Young people are falling in love with old technology

Lucy Jackson uses a phone that can do little besides make a call and, with some effort, send a text. That complicates life for a college freshman in 2025.

- Max Kutner

But for Jackson, who uses paper maps and calls the local cab company when she needs a ride, the added challenges of low-tech life are a small price to pay for what she gains.

“I have a lot more appreciation for things that I can’t access readily at my fingertips, like any kind of media,” said Jackson, 17. “It is a little bit harder to make friends with people and keep in contact.”

Teens and twenty-somethings may have grown up consuming media on their phones, ordering food on apps, and using rideshares, but some have had enough.

Driven by a desire to escape screens and reclaim a sense of control over their lives, they are resurrecting digital cameras, flip phones, and CDs. It’s not unusual to see them roaming the aisles of a record store or doing sidewalk photo shoots with digital cameras, as if they had time-traveled back to the early 2000s.

The Luddite Club, a nonprofit group that supports taking smartphone breaks, has 26 chapters, nearly all of them at high schools or colleges. Jackson is a board member.