Now in College, #LudditeTeens Still Don’t Want Your Likes

Three years after starting a club meant to fight #SocialMedia’s grip on young people, many original members are holding firm and gaining new converts.

By Alex Vadukul
Jan. 30, 2025

"Biruk Watling, a college sophomore wearing a baggy coat and purple fingerless gloves, walked the chilly campus of Temple University in #Philadelphia on a recent afternoon to recruit new members to her club.
She taped a flier to a pole: '#JoinTheLudditeClub For #MeaningfulConnections.' Down the block, she posted another one: 'Do You Desire a Healthier Relationship With Technology, Especially Social Media? The Luddite Club Welcomes You and Your Ideas.'

"When a student approached, Ms. Watling dove into her pitch.

"'Our club promotes #ConsciousConsumption of #technology,' she said. 'We’re for #HumanConnection. I’m one of the first members of the original Luddite Club in #Brooklyn. Now I’m trying to start it in #Philly.

"She pulled out a #FlipPhone, mystifying her recruit.

"'We use these,' she said. 'This has been the most freeing experience of my life.'
If Ms. Watling had a missionary’s zeal, it was because she wasn’t just promoting a student club, but an approach to modern life that profoundly changed her two years ago, when she helped form the Luddite Club as a high school student in New York.

"But that was then, back when things were simpler, before she had embarked on the more independent life of a college student and found herself having to navigate QR codes, two-factor-identification logins, dating apps and other digital staples of campus life.

"The #LudditeClub was the subject of an article I wrote in 2022 — a story that, ironically, went viral. It told of how a group of teenage tech skeptics from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn and a few other schools in the city gathered on weekends in Prospect Park to enjoy some time together away from the machine.

"They #sketched and #painted side by side. They read quietly, favoring works by #Dostoyevsky, #Kerouac and #Vonnegut. They sat on logs and groused about how #TikTok was dumbing down their generation. Their flip phones were decorated with stickers and nail polish.

"Readers inspired by their message responded in hundreds of emails and comments. Reporters from Germany, Brazil, Japan and elsewhere flooded my inbox, asking me how to reach these students who were so hard to track down online. Snarky Reddit threads and think pieces sprouted. #RalphNader endorsed the club in an opinion essay, writing: 'This is a rebellion that needs support and diffusion.'"

Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/style/luddite-teens-reunion.html

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/
#SolarPunkSunday #Nature #NeoLuddite #Luddites #LessScreenTime #MoreBoardGames #MoreGreenTime #MoreOutdoorTime #FlipPhones #MoreBooks #ResistTheMachine

#KleeBenally #SongToTheSun

"Our mother aches
Iron claws dig until she breaks
And she bleeds for this
How much is enough?

I remember listening to songs of the sun
For all those, who’s breath was stolen
Who’s future was taken away
Who learned too late

CHORUS:
And so we sing again
To the house of dawn
There are no words, no words that can right these wrongs.

This land breathes pain
And nothing grows
that doesn’t carry the trauma
that we’ve wept, that you sow…

CHORUS

this empire of blood and bones
of stolen, poisoned, homes…
genocide… mutilated ghosts…

fierce hearts lay buried… their struggle speaks…
fierce hearts lay buried… saying…
“leave it in the ground…”

While the mines lay abandoned – What has been done?
Wells poisoned… nothing has been done?
Cancers spread… tell me, what has been done?
To right these wrongs! To right these wrongs!

CHORUS

deafening the screams
grinding down the gears
you can’t hear them cause your window is closed
and you’ve surrendered your power to your fears

There’s a market for everything…
social media exists
so you keep on consuming…
it’s revolutionary chic and at least you “liked” and shared…
for liberation…oh what a loaded word…
and you’ve marched quietly along
and you’ve marched so complacently along

one brutal violent machine pressing against another (3x)
crushing all our dreams, and all we desire
the price is paid in blood and we know what its worth…
the price is paid in blood…
capitalism is the enemy…of mother earth. (2x)

deafening the screams
grinding down the gears
you can’t hear them cause your window closed
and you’ve surrendered your power to your fears

one brutal violent machine pressing against another
you’ve surrendered your power to your fears
one brutal violent machine pressing against another
you’ve surrendered your power to your fears

I will hold your hand
At the edge of this world
As we watch it burn to the ground

I will hold your hand
At the edge of the dawn
And laugh and wonder at the new days we’ve found

they will not suffocate this fire
it burns from our hearts
so long as we hold this inside
they can never take this from us

how much can you take?
how much can you give?
there is no post-apocalyptic
oh this is it

how much can we bleed?
till were up off our knees?
there’s no post-colonial, we live it

they will not suffocate this fire
it burns from our hearts
so long as we hold this inside
they can never take this from us

if this is our grave
such a wondrous bed we’ve been made
only so much we can bleed
so much more than we’d ever need

I will hold your hand
At the edge of this world
As we watch it burn to the ground.

Peabody‘s drag lines across the landscape
like militarized borders that carve this police state
1974 government pens wrote, “relocate”
divide and conquer, 14,000 and today?

We know this nightmare because it repeats
’till something breaks
An act of liberation

Yes we all know it’s the rich against the poor
class, race, gender, and mother earth just a resource
globalization is colonization and colonization is always war…

We know this nightmare because it repeats
’till something breaks
An act of liberation!

Industrial capitalist hetero-patriarchy
We know the story of so many manifested destinies
From the broken bones of broken homes and violated boarding school dreams

We know this nightmare because it repeats
’till something breaks
An act of liberation!

From Big Mountain to Palestine, relocation is genocide.
We stand against all wars and occupation
Against nationalism, against state sponsored terrorism

the free market non-profit industry
accountable to foundations no not community
paychecks for activism, for justice or just them?
But this ain’t no revolutionary commodity…
It’s an act of liberation

An act of liberation!

it’s only a matter of time
it’s only a question, an affirmation
of who we are and who we’ve have been

reconnect the dots
trace back the memories
its only a matter of time
until our words match our actions

CHORUS:
these laws, these borders, these walls, will fall
it’s only a matter of time, it’s only a matter of action

How much can we pretend,
that we’re not complicit in our silence?
how much longer, until these times get so desperate?

the beating in our hearts
a rhythm we can’t shut out
calling us to action, call us to action…

CHORUS

its a matter of action.

these are desperate times calling for desperate measures
these are desperate times calling for desperate action

its a matter of action.

Time for action

Following paths
so many ways to wander
so many ways I’ve wondered
always the question biting at my heel
sometimes its too much to feel

open hearts bleed
strong hearts deceived
where were you in this time of need?

following paths so many ways to take it on
so many ways we’ve lost
always the question expressing the real
sometimes its too much to feel

open hearts bleed strong hearts deceive
where were you in this time of need?
where were you?

your shadow still cast
all that we lived past
your words still linger
if we could peel back the time
uncover the wounds so they can really heal

sometimes its too much to feel

open hearts bleed strong hearts deceive
where were you in this time of need?
where were you?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBhDVnzG_s
#AnActOfLiberation #Degrowth #TimeForAction #ATimeForLiberation #ATimeForAction #AMatterForAction #AnActOfLiberation #PostColonialism #ResistTheMachine #ResistHeteroPatriarchy