Finally it's dawning on us: there is a life beyond mobile phones

It’s only a small rectangular sticker, but it symbolises a joyous sense of resistance.

- John Harris

Some of Berlin’s most renowned clubs have long insisted that the camera lenses on their clientele’s phones must be covered using this simple method, to ensure everyone is present in the moment and people can let go without fear of their image appearing on some online platform. As one DJ puts it: “Do you really want to be in someone’s picture in your jockstrap?”

Venues in London, Manchester and New York now enforce the same rules. This month brought news of the return of Sankeys, a Mancunian club that closed nearly a decade ago and is reopening in the heart of the city. Phones there will reportedly either be stickered or forbidden. “People need to stop taking pictures and start dancing to the beat,” said one of the club’s original founders.

He is right, but it seems that the zeitgeist might be aligning in that direction anyway. If 2025 has had any kind of defining cultural theme, it perhaps boils down to people’s increasing sense that a life completely beholden to screens is no life at all. To this, add two connected trends: a drop in millions of people’s use of social media, and a rising yearning for experiences that are more authentic. This is not, just to be clear, any kind of suggestion that we are about to reject digital technology and wind the clock back 30 years. But something is definitely up, and it is worth tentatively celebrating.