Latest / The Nation Podcasts / The Luddite Club is For Everyone w/ Amanda Hanna-McLeer & Lucy Jackson | Tech Won't Save Us

Transcript

The Luddite Club is For Everyone w/ Amanda Hanna-McLeer & Lucy Jackson | Tech Won't Save Us · The Nation Podcasts

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is frustrating and I totally understand why people feel like you can or that these companies are trying to force us to use the tech in the way they want because yes, they are they have a lot of control, but we also don't understand our own agency most of the time.
0:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us Made in Arkership, the Nation Magazine.
0:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host Paris Marks, and this week my guests are Amanda Henna McLeard and Lucy Jackson.
0:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Amanda is a writer, educator, and director of the forthcoming Lodate Club Documentary, and Lucy is an early member of the Lodate Club itself.
0:49
[SPEAKER_02]: maybe you've heard of the Lodite Club or maybe you haven't.
0:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It came on my radar in I believe 2022 when news stories started to be published about this group of teenagers at a high school in Brooklyn who had created a group called obviously the Lodite Club.
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: This was a space where they got rid of their phones.
1:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the members even went to flip phones instead of using smartphones.
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And just kind of got together to read, to discuss things, to explore the city.
1:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It was really about getting out of the digital world and back into the physical world among people and kind of enjoying each other's company, getting off of social media in particular.
1:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously this caught a lot of people's attention, not just mine, and now there are lotty clubs in many different states, many different schools, even outside of the United States, as other teenagers have taken up this idea and made it their own.
1:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, this is really fascinating and also really hopeful to see people, especially younger people, pushing back on these technologies that have become so dominant over the past number of decades.
1:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But which also have a lot of drawbacks to them, right?
1:59
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of things that we don't generally like about how they work.
2:02
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of areas where we recognize that they have moved society in a negative direction.
2:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's a growing movement about trying to take that back, right?
2:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Trying to reverse course on some of those negative aspects of the digital revolution transition, you know, whatever you want to call it, right?
2:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when you see these young people, not just creating a club around just that, but also taking back this name of the Lottite, right, calling themselves openly explicitly Lottites, obviously this is fascinating to a Lottite like me.
2:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So of course, I had to have some of these folks on the podcast.
2:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought it was a good mix to have Amanda who has been kind of following the club, obviously involved as well, but also trying to tell the story of what the Lottite club is,
2:46
[SPEAKER_02]: As well as Lucy who is one of the early members and so was there from early on, knows about the motivations and can fill us in a bit about that.
2:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I will just give you a heads up.
2:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the audio in this episode might be a bit lower quality than we usually have.
3:00
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a fair bit of echo in Lucy's audio for example.
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So apologies about that, but hopefully you'll still enjoy the conversation.
3:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course learn about the Lodite Club, maybe even go check it out.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So with that said, if you do enjoy this conversation, make sure to leave a five star view on your podcast platform of choice, you can share the show on social media or with any friends or colleagues who you think would learn from it.
3:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you do want to support the work that goes into making tech won't save us every single week, so we can keep having these critical in-depth conversations about so many different aspects of the world that the tech industry has created for us and what it means to live in it and push back against it.
3:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You can join supporters like Lucy from Argentina.
3:36
[SPEAKER_02]: V and Denver, Colorado and Whitney from South Bend, Indiana by going to patreon.com slash tech won't save us where you can become a supporter as well.
3:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much and enjoy this week's conversation.
3:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Amanda, welcome to tech won't save us.
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having us.
3:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And Lucy, great to have you on the show as well.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
3:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
3:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited to speak with you both because I think for a lot of listeners of the show, they will be pretty familiar with the Lodite Club.
4:01
[SPEAKER_02]: They will have heard about it.
4:02
[SPEAKER_02]: They will have read some of the
4:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I think it's a long past time that we had a discussion about it on the show.
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I feel like for me, the initial thing I want to know is where did the Lottite Club come from?
4:17
[SPEAKER_02]: How did this actually start?
4:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And how did you both get involved with it?
4:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it started with Logan and James and two girls on high school.
4:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And Logan was a junior at James and was a freshman, and they came together.
4:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were like,
4:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we've got a problem.
4:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm pretty sure that it's with bones of time.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And they decided to start a club and then run at their friends and run people from school.
4:40
[SPEAKER_01]: They hung up posters at Murrow, which Amanda saw.
4:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, they kind of, it just thrown off of them.
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and there are periods from what I understand before I met them where Logan didn't have a phone.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: She threw her smart phone into the Guana's canal here in Brooklyn.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: they had different uses of their, of their dumb phones.
5:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm like Lucy said, pretty sure James and had the flip phone, but I'm not quite sure if Logan at that point, even had a phone because she went for periods of time without a cell phone.
5:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is really great, really fascinating.
5:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And so was the initial kind of conception of the Lutty Club been really around phones and getting rid of smartphones in particular or was it something broader or did that part come later?
5:23
[SPEAKER_01]: To my understanding, a large facet of what they were focused on most of them,
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And then later, I remember we were making posters, start a book on tech, but I quote, and James was like, oh, let's put a flip on on the front.
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, it's really cool.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really great.
5:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But also nobody's going to come and food that.
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, I kind of like, it helps steer a little bit and she just told me I'm the same page too, but we're like, what if we kind of steer it more towards anti social media and like anti tech rather than,
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: the entire idea before just so it can be a little more encompassing for anybody who wants to join.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and in terms of, you know, the Letite Club from what I've come to understand over the last few years is that there is a true spectrum of letism, where you have on one side of things you have people who don't have social media don't have a smartphone on the other side, it's people that have social media that have smart phones, but a deeply critical of technology and the outside's role that it plays in their lives.
6:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I respect Lucy, Jamison, Logan and others and what they were doing so much because knowing at a pretty young age in high school that you have to create this big tent movement in order to get your point across.
6:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That's tricky, especially a club.
6:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, clubs can be glicky, but they really did such a good job about like opening it up and being approachable.
6:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
6:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like it's something I wouldn't have been able to do in high school.
6:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So like a ton of respect for that, right?
6:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder, you know, how you both actually got involved with it?
6:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned, of course, the high school where the started Lucy.
7:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course, you weren't a co-founder, but you were an early member and Amanda, you were a teacher at the school.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So how did you both get involved with this and and can what kind of peak your interest when you started hearing about it?
7:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got rid of my smartphone and social media in 2021.
7:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I had tried everything I possibly could to have a healthier relationship with my smartphone and social media.
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I did time limits, I did black and white mode, I took social media off my smartphone, only had it on desktop, and this is when it wasn't working well on desktop.
7:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And nothing was working.
7:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt this compulsion to just pick it up all the time to to pick up the smartphone to check social media and so finally, especially after the pandemic, you know, I mean, we're still in it.
7:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is 2021, but the peak of the pandemic.
7:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought, this is the time to do it.
7:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to get rid of all of it.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my friends had called me a lot of night.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, it was in a derogatory way.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not defined in the way that we've come to define it in the club.
8:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did my research and I'm like, the lot of nights were cool as hell.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what people are talking about that or super principles.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever if you're going to call me a lot of I call me a lot of night.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So I go back to my old high school, Edward R. Murrow High School, one of my former teachers asked me to found a film department.
8:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So 2021 students are masked.
8:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of chaotic and I see these a lot of club posters in the hallways.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, man, that is so great.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope this is what I think it is.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, it was a group of students who were a techno-critical fast-forward
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the club members, Avitala Cruz is in my class and she's taking these camcorder videos of club meetings and she's like, I wanted to show you because I know you've got the flip phone, you know, the kids in my class called it a burner phone, they were like, you almost make clear why you got a burner.
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: they're already recognized me like you're one of them.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
9:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And we kind of had to harass me.
9:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a new teacher super overwhelmed and was like, look at this footage.
9:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at this footage.
9:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then the New York Times article comes out and she runs into my room.
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, we're in the New York Times.
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, that's sick.
9:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That's absolutely insane.
9:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe it, but I also can, you know, this hasn't been represented before in the media.
9:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, as I mentioned earlier, all these networks start reaching out, but they're looking at the kids like their curiosities.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And that disappointed me because I knew that they were principled young people, that this wasn't just a
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And so after they turned down the networks, I went to V and I said, you know, I'd love to direct a documentary, but only if you guys would have me and only if it's with you.
9:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, let me talk to the club and they said yes.
9:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Cool and and I want to come back to talking about the documentary a little bit later and also like both of your relationships to social media and technology.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But Lucy, how did you get involved with it?
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: at this like Halloween party show thing and we just talked for a couple hours and then I kind of just left like I didn't say buy everything which I felt really bad about.
10:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like I hope I see this person again like and then we ran into each other again and then we started running into each other continuously at the band steps in Brooklyn, that's how school.
10:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Because either I or her would be sitting there reading and we would just sit down next to the other when we got there and it was really cute and like we just never got each other's phone number is nothing we just like had the silent agreement to meet there.
10:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when they were talking about all this stuff, she was like, oh, I just club with Logan, like my friend Logan, really cool.
10:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called the What I Club, where just like trying to be off our phones, I was like, what this is awesome?
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I had had an eye for a while, but I had never been big on social media.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a lot of people in the club were.
10:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So I felt a little bit like impostery because of that, because it was like, kind of a wellness group for kids who had been really into social media.
11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're trying to get off it.
11:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't one of those kids.
11:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wasn't really ever on it.
11:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It was nice.
11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I came in, I didn't leave.
11:08
[SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.
11:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you talk about how, OK, you had an iPhone.
11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: You weren't very in-to-social media regardless.
11:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Before the Lodite Club was that like an intentional decision or was it just not really interesting you or why that approach, I guess?
11:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a flip phone for your nap.
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I still had it run to my time of the Lodite Club.
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't see it personally as a necessity
11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: of degree that was problematic.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it all comes out to like this group.
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a twin sister in her name as Sasha.
11:37
[SPEAKER_01]: She's also one of the letters.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were very seven being different.
11:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So she was always really a social media.
11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I always wasn't as much personally because of her, partially because I wasn't as social.
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like the bookish type that you see in the club a lot.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it was very traditional to that cookie cutter.
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially for her, she got a flip phone
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was a byproduct of meeting to step away from that social media in that way, which I really genuinely respect a lot.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't do that really enough, I feel.
12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: A specialist and social symbol.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was that, yeah, I think.
12:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That's great though, you know, you didn't have as much to pull yourself back from, which is good in a sense.
12:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I think probably better for you.
12:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Amanda, you know, you were talking about your relationship with this as well, right?
12:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned how you already had a flip phone before this.
12:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You had given up social media a lot.
12:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder what it was like one to kind of make that decision, right?
12:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like
12:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in the process of going through a lot of what you actually described, you know, taking a lot of this stuff off my phone, trying to get control of it, trying to not use it so much on desktop either, but still like having issues with that focus.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I wonder on the one hand, what drove you to make that shift.
12:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But also, it feels like it must have been a difficult thing to do in the middle of the pandemic when it was harder to connect with people in person as well.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the way I think about it is that I had been on social media since I was 14.
13:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So 14 to 28.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm now 32.
13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's 14 years of basically being programs, how to respond to and at, how to respond to notifications, respond to these design cues in this persuasive design.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And I noticed it when I was young.
13:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I luckily had a mom who should see that it's been a lot of time on my space, right?
13:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I went from my space to Facebook to Instagram to Twitter.
13:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Lucy, you missed out on my space.
13:37
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a, I think, a bit of a federal one.
13:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
13:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Lucy missed out on anything.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: No, fair enough.
13:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, it's just like, I noticed the shift and I noticed, you know, family members would be on my space or for hours.
13:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw like they're in a different way.
13:55
[SPEAKER_00]: zone right now.
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was always really observing of that.
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I was about to say earlier is, you know, my mom would see me on my space and be like, you went on for a little while.
14:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to get off soon?
14:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, yeah, you know what, you're right, 15 more minutes, and she'd be like, yeah, it was a conversation.
14:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So she didn't outright ban it, which I think was really important, even though she was concerned about it, and she really left it up to me, which is why I related so much to the Luddite club members, because it was all on their own volition.
14:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They decided, I don't want this.
14:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't top-down from parents.
14:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I had been thinking about these things for a while.
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I might also might background once I was a working professional in the film and television industry.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I just saw how tech addled everybody what's, and especially in a job where you're watching TV all day to some people that sounds amazing.
14:51
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, is torture sometimes because you'd watch the same thing over and over and over again.
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It was critical of it that whole time I would try and get, you know, my coworkers just to come out for lunch at Brian Park for 20 minutes and they couldn't do it and instead they would eat lunch at their desk and then they would be scrolling on their phones while also have watching something on their screen.
15:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
15:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like Jenny O'Dell is one of those people who's long overdue for me to have on the show as well, to be quite honest.
15:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Here you say that it's interesting to hear about both of your journeys, right?
15:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And coming at it from different angles, of course, because technology was in different places as you were growing up and you had different approaches to it all that.
15:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I really relate, obviously, to what you're saying, Amanda, being that we're of similar ages and we're around for as a lot of this was happening, right?
15:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Using a lot of these platforms and things.
15:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wonder, when I think of the lot, I think,
15:59
[SPEAKER_02]: as you're saying.
16:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a lot of these articles talking about the kind of the philosophy that goes into it, as you were talking about Lucy around on the one hand, the phones, but also the social media, as you were talking about in terms of the way to approach it.
16:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But it also feels like there's a big community element to this, you know, coming into the fact that it's a club, right?
16:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you talk to me about that part?
16:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what it is like bringing these people together and how you have felt about kind of the response that it has received and the number of young people who have
16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something like funny.
16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been thinking about, I think the community aspect is the most important part.
16:33
[SPEAKER_01]: People constantly ask, like, oh, I'm so fun.
16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Big deal, why do I look so?
16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, the main also, in addition to that, one of the main, like, I guess, our humans against.
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it's generally is that it's like a classes movement, all this stuff.
16:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the idea of creating a community in order to not gake a lifestyle is the opposite classes.
16:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the real value, right?
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you have this club, okay, great.
17:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But in having this club, you're creating an idea in anybody who sees your posters, who hears about your club from a friend, you have this idea that's seedling, oh, I actually don't have to be on all these devices because look at this like human proof that I don't have to be, right?
17:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that community really fosters that really just hope and the idea of possibility for others.
17:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's like the greatest thing
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, you don't have to pay to be in it.
17:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not crazy time consuming.
17:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's once a week for an hour, however many you have, and that's it.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just keeps you accountable and you have these people and you're able to spread positive message.
17:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds really cool.
17:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder, either of you, if you can talk to me about what actually goes on at a lot of club meeting, how does it work?
17:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess.
17:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gone to a bunch of different meetings and they changed from meeting to meeting, especially because the members started when they were in high school and now they're in college, right?
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And Logan's older than Jameson, so Logan went on to college while Jameson and Lucy were still in high school, but
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The first meeting that I went to, they met on the steps of the Grand Army Central Library, Brooklyn Public Library.
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's talking, everyone's engaged.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: People are late because, you know, they're not really confined to that kind of exactitude, right of like, oh, we have to be there at two o'clock or whatever.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a general meeting time, and then they, you know, mose on over to the park.
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the park, people could be doing a number of things, reading on their own, even, but just in the group setting, playing chess, Lucy taught me how to play chess, playing Frisbee, debating something from school.
18:49
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many just different activities, but nobody's on their phone.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then sometimes club meetings are a trip to the thrift store without Google Maps.
18:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I have that in the documentary.
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really great because you have a couple of club members in the back being like James and James and James and I think we're going to get lost.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I don't do really know where you're going and she's like, yes, yes, I know And you know, sometimes they make mistakes navigating the city sand, smartphone, but they stumble upon beautiful things because of it and it makes it all more interesting.
19:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is something I know Lucy can speak to and is very passionate about, but you can see during these meetings how they are re-skilling and re-tooling.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They are learning New York City and creating different memories of places and how to get different places and how to commune with one another, how to debate.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really beautiful to see that re-skilling.
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: If it has changed a lot, as she said, it's in high school, it was a lot more structured and routine and like, you know, we'd meet at the library steps at like two or three, one over the time was a time.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Base and then the go to the park and so I guess some of the like stuff I've done at college was like beginning of the year when there's a little one around you like build these forts in the woods and we'd have like a team.
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people collect sticks, some people structure it, some people would paint it.
20:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so everyone had a different task and then you could just wish like nothing was a sign that was just whatever you wanted to do with that moment and then we've done.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So like mystic courts this drawing activity where you hand off to a bunch of different people.
20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I've tried to get people to bring like extrobs and books or things that they've written, which has worked out sometimes.
20:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and yeah, just being in our space together without that exterior distraction and like, you know, someone's reading over there, like,
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at this, I just read this, like this is so cool.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody's like, yeah, okay, like, there's none of that.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you are genuinely there.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, you're living in that, that's third dimension.
20:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You're supposed to live in.
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so beautiful.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: To me and to all of us, and I had, it's very special.
21:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And people are always asking a question.
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But you guys do.
21:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like,
21:09
[SPEAKER_01]: what don't you do, like, what can you not do?
21:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds awesome, right?
21:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds like a great way to get together to like not just learn about the other people in the club, but to have these experiences together and to actually have discussions, to actually have these in-person ways of relating to culture, the world around you, exploring, it sounds great.
21:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Then, as you were talking about, like, even just like reading with a group and finding something in your book and getting up and wanting to share it,
21:34
[SPEAKER_02]: with them.
21:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember recently I was reading something in a book and I found hilarious and I was like, how am I going to share this with people?
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just at home by myself, right?
21:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, took a photo of the pages and like sent it to a few people.
21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, this is really funny.
21:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You should see it.
21:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Just like at least some way of connecting.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: But you mentioned obviously Lucy, you're in college now, right?
21:53
[SPEAKER_02]: A number of the other,
21:54
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of early members were in college and I remember reading some articles about how short started at this one high school but then other people were involved at grew to others.
22:04
[SPEAKER_02]: What have you made of the growth of it?
22:06
[SPEAKER_02]: How has that changed the lot I club?
22:09
[SPEAKER_02]: How has it changed in particular with that kind of movement from high school into college as well?
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now we have like 30 other clubs around the country and there's a few.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a one in Australia, one or two in Australia, Canada, France, and
22:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's been kind of the spread.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think it's lost any of the genuine feeling that you have with a small group of people and a very kind of like undisclosed location.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we still have that.
22:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that you're spread out now.
22:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little different now because it's like it's less of like this little thing that you're a part of and like nobody else really knows about as like you say something and sometimes people actually know what you're talking about.
22:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, what?
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you know about this like
22:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's cute in that way, because it's like we are genuinely reaching people and it's really just lovely to see.
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But into college, I think people are a lot more open minded, a lot less hecklers, well, some people have stared at my phone and been like, what is that?
23:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But we can use it because I don't know.
23:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I apologize, like it's a then empty three player.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But generally a lot more open minded.
23:16
[SPEAKER_00]: very critical for it's cool to see how dedicated all the members are from high school to college because that's the one question I got all the time it's like sure these kids can do this in high school that's cute but what happens when they enter the real world which I thought was such a condescending question one but two I was like they're going to stick to their guns they're really
23:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just super humbled to have been able to track that and see that progression.
23:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a bit of a divergence from what we're talking about, but we find this often where it's like, yeah, these ideas are great, but in reality.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And as an artist, I think that's one of the most limiting things that you can tell anybody.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've been told that.
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you can't be a filmmaker.
24:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't be an artist without social media.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So this film that we're doing is attempts to disprove that.
24:13
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just so much of that, like, you know, in the film industry, you can have any agency and how you interact with technology.
24:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just not true.
24:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I try and talk to club members about this all the time, so they know what's expected in the workplace, because when Slack came out, I was in the office, I was working in television,
24:32
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was working on like broad city, the Americans, high maintenance, these these bigger shows and I saw what slack was and one I was funded by the name and then two I was like I'm not doing this I told my boss and I'm like I'm sorry this is adding more work we all work in the same place I understand it's different when it's remote but no.
24:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a way to do it, like yes, depending on where you work, that's not always feasible, but like express your feelings about technology.
25:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't accept what's given to you.
25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You have some agency.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your life.
25:06
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25:14
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25:16
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25:21
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25:29
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25:43
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25:49
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25:56
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26:05
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26:08
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26:12
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26:17
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26:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, we met at a lot of tribunal at the end of last year and I was like fascinated when you came up to me with your flip phone and you know, I was even playing with it and like taking pictures and stuff.
26:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I was so intrigued.
26:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's put it that way.
26:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I wonder you both been talking about the growth, which is like so cool to hear that so many other people are getting involved with this and that you've even seen, you know, clubs form outside of the United States as well.
26:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wonder you both have flip phones.
26:52
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it like living without a smartphone in 2026 when it feels like so many of even the services that we rely on are increasingly pushed into apps and it feels like it's hard to interact with them in any other way because the companies are all pushing us toward the smartphone, the app-based life, all this kind of stuff.
27:11
[SPEAKER_02]: What has it been like to kind of give that up and has it been as hard as maybe people might think?
27:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't think it's as hard as people make it out to be, you know, one of the first things that people always say is like restaurants, QR codes and I always say there's a thing where you can ask the server, what they like on the menu and ask them for recommendation and if you don't like it, they can also tell you another thing that's on the menu, you know, you're really press.
27:39
[SPEAKER_00]: when it comes to maps that's always the hardest thing for people, how do you navigate without maps and I understand that's that's a huge consideration but that's another situation where I do have a computer at home I can look it up before I leave and then if I do get lost I ask somebody on the street more often than not like I'll make fun of myself a little bit like hey look this is my phone I don't have directions can you help me out and people do they're they're so friendly more often
28:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I, I can recommend.
28:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I think people are like, they do it is like on a table thing where like, oh my god, I can never do that.
28:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, first off, you could strike it.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's saying, if you go to a flip phone, you can never go back.
28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you put your SIM card in it.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You try it.
28:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't like it.
28:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You take your SIM card out and you put it back in yourself.
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's like you can literally do it for a day.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think it's as hard.
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, quite genuinely I found myself reaching out to more people because I actually have to make that concerted effort.
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't just like text them and pretend that we're having a real conversation when we're not really, at least for me, plenty of people have real conversations I'm sure, but I just can't really do it.
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not looking someone in the eyes.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And my friendships have really flourished because of this, I think, and I've found who I value the most because I'll reach out, and I'll make time, and I'll see those people, or I'll call those people whatever it is.
29:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Navigation, as Amanda said, I completely agree with everything she said.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Social media people, like, oh my god, I miss it so much.
29:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, really, you know, you have an extra few hours in your day, and can do anything you want.
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You could actually see the people that you're looking at, and schooling past, like, go see them.
29:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, or call them or do anything.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: genuine time.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There's certain utility and picky things like I'm a flashlight.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have his good of a camera.
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But if I genuinely care about those things, I'll just go get them.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'll get a flashlight for $2.99.
29:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to go explore caves or something, you know?
29:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if I actually want to do it, I will do it.
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're just able to do
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to take action, and you have to take accountability.
29:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you have to be more creative, like one of the things that I'm thinking, like as Lucy's describing this is creativity.
29:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think it's any surprise that so many of the lead-eye club members are artistic and have multiple ways of expressing themselves, whether that's music or drawing, writing.
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: What's incredible, too, is that none of the members fit into any kind of box?
30:10
[SPEAKER_00]: James sends a physics major and I always found that incredible because you also had this amazing art portfolio as well and that extends to so many other club members, but that's my kind of best example of that kind of range and there are a few things that Lucy said that I want to briefly comment on as well as at the SIM card, it is that easy, but to your point Paris, they are making it more difficult because some of these phones now don't have SIM cards that you can pop out anymore.
30:39
[SPEAKER_02]: totally don't switch over to that eSIM.
30:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the worst.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that eSIM is no good.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's like we're taking the control away from you.
30:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that classic story, I think that like, you know, boomers have of like taking radios apart and learning how they work and it's not as accessible and it's designed that way.
30:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one of the things that I learned from Brian Merchins one device is how consider that design was not only in the persuasive
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: design of the apps and things like that, but also like the physical device.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is frustrating, and I totally understand why people feel like you can or that these companies are trying to force us to use the tech in the way they want, because yes, they are.
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a lot of control, but we also don't understand our own agency most of the time.
31:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're totally spot on, right?
31:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think what both of you are saying makes a ton of sense.
31:31
[SPEAKER_02]: At the end of last year, I was finding I was using Instagram a lot.
31:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Just stuck in like the loops of reels, you know, how people have talked about getting stuck on TikTok and like, you know, the algorithm keeps you going.
31:41
[SPEAKER_02]: That was like me on Instagram by the end of last year.
31:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And I deleted it from my phone like the last day of last year, January 1st or whatever.
31:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was shocked at like how I never thought about it.
31:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Like,
31:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It was something that I was wasting so much time on and I deleted it and it was like it didn't matter my brain did not miss it.
31:59
[SPEAKER_02]: It was totally fine and I feel like Lucy was what you're saying on like friendships and stuff like that I feel like one of the things that I found or that I find like so frustrating is have so many things need to default the text and it feels like you almost need an appointment to call somebody these days and it feels like we really need to change that you know.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, 100% agree.
32:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully it can change, you know, and more people get out of the phones.
32:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wonder, you know, I was asking what it's like to live without a smartphone in 2026.
32:27
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm also wondering, does the fact that you're using a flip phone or, you know, even Lucie, you mentioned like an iPod or an MP3 player, does that prompt interesting conversations when people see you not having this kind of device that people make note of it and like ask you better to do anything like that?
32:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more people are like, oh, what is that?
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that's it.
32:50
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, oh, they're like, oh, okay.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the end.
32:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But I've definitely had a few interesting conversations.
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, I don't like on public transit, especially because you have time and people aren't like, gotta go like, this is awkward.
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're sitting next to you.
33:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not like they're gonna get up and move through scenes away.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So occasionally, but not as much as you think, I guess.
33:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when I had the light phone, I have just a Motorola looking flip right now, but when I had the light phone, I got a lot of questions because people hadn't seen it.
33:22
[SPEAKER_00]: This was a few years ago, this was 20-21.
33:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So they were like, is that a Kindle?
33:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so small.
33:28
[SPEAKER_00]: What's happening there?
33:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that people did get really curious about it.
33:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean it inevitably people are they always say oh I wish I could like Lucy said and how do you manage it's always the question about maps which is like that tells me something like that we need to have these utility tools available to people who use dunk bones but not everything else like nobody needs any of that has to
33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: No, definitely.
33:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And you see phones like the light phone, I don't know if the light phone specifically does it, but other ones that are like trying to figure out that like balance, right?
34:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Without giving you everything, but having some of the things that you might need.
34:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like for me as well, that's one of the reasons why I feel like I can't give up this smartphone at the moment, even though I'm trying to like rain it in, especially where I travel up for work is like, I mean, different places where I'm not familiar with.
34:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I need to be able to find my way around, right?
34:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But which is, you know, just one reason.
34:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I have many excuses, don't worry, not just that one.
34:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm wondering as well, you were talking about kind of the bigger kind of structural issues here, right?
34:28
[SPEAKER_02]: That I feel like a lot of this is responding to, right?
34:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's giving up phones, giving up social media.
34:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the big discussions over the past few years has been really the mental health effects of dependence on devices, but also on social media.
34:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I wonder what you make of those debates, whether you've experienced things like that or whether you see your peers, especially for you, Lucy, kind of
34:50
[SPEAKER_02]: dealing with the mental health effects of using these platforms at the expectations of social media, and how you relate to that and how you think about it.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the weirdest yet most telling, I guess, example of all this is like the internet humor, which I know is like, oh, but I like this is kind of embarrassing, but I like quite genuinely sometimes do not get to joke.
35:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody around me is laughing and I'm like,
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something will pull it up and show me how much of a straight face and I'll be like, why is it funny.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: People are like, oh god, like it's not and then it's so sometimes it's the kitchen, but it's like, if you are not in it, you're out of it, right, like it's it's either you're in or you're out and so.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I see that a lot and people are so scared to be out that they have to go all the way in and to the max to a point where you can't even find your way out.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But mental health was whenever I tell people like, oh, you know, taking 20 credits at school, doing a lot of club stuff, I'm doing an internship, I'm running for this blog, like,
35:56
[SPEAKER_01]: all the stuff at once, they're like, how the hell do you have the time?
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, well, if I take your scroll time and I delete it from your day, you would also have the time.
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And people are like, yeah, that's not true.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not true.
36:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, then how do I do it?
36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, it's, I'm not by on it.
36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not like super natural.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, well, I can do it.
36:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably so can you, you know?
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the opposite of by on it.
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's the most mortal, you know?
36:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, I'm gonna be the last one with the chip of my brain.
36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you see it everywhere, right, you just you have to look and you have to have the more critical lens that people normally do, but let's you have it.
36:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like Amanda showed us this movie.
36:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They live.
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the glasses.
36:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you can see more on that.
36:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But it reminds me of that.
36:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of the they live glasses.
36:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we just get the meta glasses to give us an AI sheen on the world.
36:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's why I was so fun to smash those glasses at the let-eye tribunal.
36:51
[SPEAKER_02]: That was fun, yeah.
36:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Even while I was wearing a pair recording us smashing the beef.
36:56
[SPEAKER_00]: That was so good.
36:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That was so good to capture it on a pair of glasses.
37:00
[SPEAKER_00]: through video and then just watch another pair of glasses get smashed to bits.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'll go back to day lives.
37:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The question was about mental health and I remember this is very specific memory I have when it's probably 2018 and I was feeling just really anxious and depressed and I was looking at social media and
37:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if I knew that I felt bad because of comparison online and I knew that it wasn't real and all of these things, I felt like that non-feeling in my stomach, that something was off.
37:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember during my lunch break looking up like, it's social media addictive.
37:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Can your iPhone be addictive and the research was there wasn't enough research out there?
37:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It was really hard to find.
37:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say it's not an existence.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there are plenty of papers that you know existed previously.
37:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that there were studies done as early as 2011, 2012, but they just weren't coming up in my search engine and I felt crazy.
38:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I started to hear from peers, right?
38:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And then all these stories are to come out.
38:09
[SPEAKER_00]: about anxiety and depression, and it's relation to social media, and then there's this debate about correlation, causation, and all of those things.
38:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what gave me hope, you know, that that conversation actually was starting to happen because it was very lonely before that.
38:27
[SPEAKER_00]: in terms of they live.
38:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's something I showed my students and then showed the club, but I was a graphic design course and I really hoped that they would notice how much they were on their phones or how much and this is in the film, but I hope they would notice how much everybody else on the trains would link where on their phones and that the advertising was really intense like all these tech ads that were up.
38:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what became AI ads later on, I was like, you know, take those day live glasses, put them on and tell me what you see and most of my class, so before I had any light nights in my class, they came back just scrolling on their phones and I was like, oh, no, that lesson did not go over the way I had hoped.
39:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But then once I found a lot of club, they're like, oh, hell yeah, this is exactly like what we're trying to get people to do, we're trying to get them to put on these glasses and see what's happening.
39:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Lucy, I have to admit this is a social media admission I need to make, but I enjoy when I see that meme come up as well, and it's like, what is the kind of the world as it really isn't said to the world, this is being shown to you, right?
39:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Just for me, like, one of the things I have found is that it saps your focus so much, right?
39:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It just makes it so easy to get distracted to kind of fall down a rabbit hole in these apps.
39:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's part of the reason that I was finally like, I really need to change my relationship with this stuff because
39:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Not only am I losing all this time that I can see on the screen time thing, but also like I just feel like I can't focus on anything when, you know, I'm around it and not trying to block it in some like very explicit way and I know that there are a lot of people who are both, you know, have those issues with focus, but also relate to the things that that you were both saying in terms of kind of using these technologies and the effect that it has on them right.
40:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the thing is that I think I wanted to mention this earlier is that a lot of people blame themselves for not being able to stop themselves or from being so distracted.
40:16
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of Blame self-blame.
40:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about your level of self-control.
40:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's again, these things are designed to be picked up again and again and again.
40:26
[SPEAKER_02]: on that subject then.
40:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think Amanda, you brought it up.
40:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder what you both make of kind of like the AI moment that we're all in now.
40:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure this must kind of like accelerate the very things that you're both quite against when it comes to these tech companies and everything that they're doing.
40:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it.
40:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm also interested Lucy, like what you see as someone who's in college now, you know, recently left high school in terms of your peers and how they're relating to gender debate as well.
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: contrary to popular belief and also what a lot of people say, I guess about us, I do think AI is generally bad.
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there are good uses, which I've been coming around two more lately, because at first I was like, no, this is the worst thing to ever have in, like, and it probably is in the top, but there are certain good uses that will probably make quality of life for people
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: lot of my peers I actively watched them were sitting in lecture in class and the professor write something on the chalkboard and it's like if you've been following the lesson in the sentence and they'll just type it into judge 15 how to explain them as they have a living breathing professor in front of them who they pay a hundreds of dollars or that class if not more and they're asking judge 15 to teach them I will never understand it I will never understand it yeah way too many of my peers
41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I know for certain that they use all the AI platforms to re-explain to write whatever it is.
41:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You're doing yourself a disservice if you do that to a certain degree AI, you know that's not just bad.
42:02
[SPEAKER_01]: To another degree, if you are actively choosing to participate and use it at a certain point, it's on you.
42:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you are giving up your rights to education in pursuit of an easy life.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So to some degree, there has to be a sense of accountability.
42:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously it's worse than your face.
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: less accountability to be taken because you're impressionable on all that, but like college kids where you said you like, what are you doing?
42:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know you're paying for this.
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You're aware of your impact.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're old enough to cognitively like,
42:33
[SPEAKER_01]: make these decisions.
42:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, my biggest concern with AI is the cognitive offloading.
42:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, you are not learning how to do XYZ.
42:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not learning these very valuable skills you are offloading it through a machine.
42:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think those skills are invaluable that you're missing out on.
42:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I always say that, you know, New York City, I grew up born and raised, but New York when I had a smartphone felt like patchwork.
43:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it feels like a quilt, like a quilt that is beautifully stitched together because I know where neighborhoods connect because I've gotten lost.
43:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gotten lost and even like a shame to say that I had gone to West Fort Street so many times, which is a popular stop on the, on the, on the D line.
43:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But I had never connected Washington Square Park, which is just like three blocks away from that stop, and when I got my dumb phone, I was like, wait.
43:29
[SPEAKER_00]: These are really close to each other.
43:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe I didn't realize because I had explored those parts of the city separately, you know.
43:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So things like that, you know, I just get concerned that like when you defer to a machine, so often that you're losing out on something.
43:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I think cognitive offload is just might that the biggest concern to me.
43:49
[SPEAKER_02]: it's one of mine as well right you know you see these studies are on the impact on critical thinking and and all these sorts of issues like you know it seems like a real problem and that's not even to mention the story is about the mental health effects of a small a number of users who get really hooked to these chapauts and things right
44:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to ask, you know, as we start to pivot and kind of close off our conversation, Amanda, you've mentioned the documentary a few times and I know that there's like a lot of club non-profit and so I want to just start with the documentary like you kind of mentioned how this got started, how the idea got going, but what has it been like putting that together and what do you hope that people learn when they're able to see this once it's put together?
44:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's been the challenge of a lifetime, but it's so enjoyable.
44:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really wonderful.
44:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like writing an extended thesis.
44:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing about film too, it's, you know, if you're writing a book, it's one thing, but with film, it's so many artistic mediums in one.
44:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, you are considering your composition, the image that you have.
44:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You're considering the sound, the music.
44:50
[SPEAKER_00]: pacing.
44:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's been really incredible to have something two things that I'm very passionate about, letism, right?
44:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And then film and how those two marries together.
45:00
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that I'm aiming to do with the film is to counteract these narratives of doom and gloom, right?
45:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Because a lot of this stuff out there is about these extreme cases, which deserve attention.
45:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, the suicide epidemic among teenagers, mental health crisis.
45:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about these things, right?
45:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But when there's such a focus on the negatives, and there's no exploration of what you gain when you opt out of these things, it just makes people feel even more depressed.
45:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want them to see what you gain, right, the skills that you gain.
45:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I have it on my whiteboard when I get lost in the sauce and my edit about what I want to do with the documentary and I have written at the top of this prove the inevitability of tech because that is the biggest thing.
45:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this idea that it's inevitable that there's no way to stop it.
45:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that if anyone can take a message away from the doc, that's what I'm hoping for,
45:59
[SPEAKER_00]: even when it seems impossible.
46:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And Lucy, I wonder what it's been like to kind of participate in the making of that documentary, you know, as, as a lot of a club member, and what, you know, members of the little lot of a club think about putting something like this together, and you know, what it might mean for getting more people involved with it.
46:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's been really fun.
46:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the big thing.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: At first, I know a lot of us were like a little bit shy because it was like, you know, there's a camera and you're like, you're like,
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, it quickly fades into the background and it's like it's just kind of it's just Amanda you know, and it's like Amanda you know, who has a camera but it's still Amanda so it's like, okay, like we're fun it's funny because when new people come and they see the camera they immediately pivot and like look a little more like cinematic like correctly positions.
46:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not, it's been one other than the over-self consciousness.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's a very occasion.
47:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost completely wrecked.
47:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And it'll be funny to see the final product and be like, oh, I love it.
47:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I know Amanda's put so much work into it.
47:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been, this has been what she's done doing.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of work.
47:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was just with her for like one summer trying to help work on it.
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, holy crap.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's definitely a beautiful thing, especially to be able to see into the inner workings of such a huge project like that, to see her artistic vision and be able to like, kind of like understand it more, because I'm like seeing what she's trying to do, I know what she's like and overbrain to a side degree.
47:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really fun, especially as a kid, you don't really, you don't get the opportunity to be a close and personal with like real professional work in more of a sense of like talking to your parents.
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is really an opportunity to get to do so.
47:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's been, it's been beautiful and it's been missed years.
47:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I would not try.
47:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just so wonderful.
47:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I've said this before, but I'm so humbled that the club let me in, that Lucy let me in because it is vulnerable.
48:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very vulnerable experience.
48:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And this work by nature and your anti-spectacle, right?
48:09
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're anti-social media, you don't want to make
48:13
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, a reality TV show or a drama filled documentary.
48:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I had producers ask me like, oh, you know, is there drama amongst the teens with dating?
48:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you should totally cover that.
48:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, hell no, it's not interested in that.
48:28
[SPEAKER_00]: That's ridiculous.
48:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, they have to trust me.
48:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had to build trust with them in order to establish that and make sure that they felt more comfortable.
48:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just, again, really grateful.
48:42
[SPEAKER_00]: to do it this long.
48:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the thing is that when we're working on the stuff that we're working on, the idea is that good things take time.
48:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not on this.
48:53
[SPEAKER_00]: treadmill of social media, a fast-paced content, right?
48:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So as the years have gone on, the story has changed because they sparked a movement.
49:03
[SPEAKER_00]: These teens in Brooklyn sparked an entire movement.
49:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we're covering in the doc as well.
49:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Things like the School of Radical of Tension, the Lanth Club, all of these clubs across.
49:15
[SPEAKER_00]: the country across the globe.
49:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to Europe for the documentary as well and people had heard about the Luddite Club and everyone I've talked to has said, like, yeah, I've always felt this way, but I saw that times article and inspired me to do something about it.
49:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They've given me the time to shape this story and not just make it just about the club but about this grand movement.
49:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait to see it.
49:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really looking forward to it to learning more about the lot of club beyond our conversation.
49:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder as we wrap up, you know, you've mentioned obviously the idea of being a lot out, obviously the, you know, the club itself is named after the lotites.
49:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder what you, what you think it means to be a lotite in 2026 and how you think people should be reassessing their relationship to technology in this moment if you have any thoughts on that.
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It just depends on you, right?
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you have your limits, you have the things that you enjoy, and you have, you know, you're like, it's all about the individual, right?
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can't go around preaching and say, everybody forget us live from, this is the way I am like, essentially I'm a styron, listen to me, like I can't be doing that, like that's just objectively wrong.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: What I can say is please, if you want to, take the time of day to breathe, think,
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And most of the time people are, even I am to this day like, I'm not all too happy with like, Spotify, so I'm trying to, you know, buy digital music or buy physical music.
50:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And just own what I listen to rather than give money to people who I may not agree with.
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that kind of thing where you, you're constantly taking more and more accountability and allowing yourself the time to take yourself in a way that will make you love yourself more.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's not about all these are my flaws.
51:05
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something I wish to improve on and hear the stuff that I take to do it.
51:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I think it is with a text metric viewpoint, but then again, that is the sun to a lot of people's existence, if you will.
51:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Totally, I love that and I love the focus on like, it's about understanding your own limits, what makes sense for you, and there's not like one kind of prescription that is for everybody.
51:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Amanda, I wonder how you think about it.
51:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love Lucy's framing there because I think it's it's key that it's not about what's wrong with you because that's a lot of where this conversation is rooted, but rather how can I improve this part of my life, how can I get more out of life and for me, you know, a lot of people, they'll say, Oh, Neil, Luddite or Luddite, I feel no need to put Neil before it because one,
51:54
[SPEAKER_00]: My goal is to rehabilitate the word ledite and restore it to its original definition and that ledites were against the abuse, not the use of technology, they were skilled artisans, wildly intelligent, they did everything they possibly could to work with the machines, work with their bosses, and they were forced.
52:17
[SPEAKER_00]: to smash the machines because they were a combination laws that outlawed unionizing, they wrote letters, they sang songs even, they wrote letters to parliament to their representatives.
52:29
[SPEAKER_00]: They did everything.
52:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So I really want people to know that, you know, that this is
52:35
[SPEAKER_00]: a term that needs to be rehabilitated, redefined, the struggle is the same.
52:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I feel no need to put Neo before.
52:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The struggle is exactly the same.
52:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about technology that rips agency and autonomy from us.
52:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need to find solidarity, trans historically, right?
52:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Learn what people have done in the past in order to help us now.
53:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's great and a great addition to what Lucy said as well.
53:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder just to close off of our conversation, where can people find it more about the documentary, when might they expect it?
53:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course, where can they find it more about the Luddite Club itself?
53:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know you mentioned to me that there's a non-profits, maybe you can tell me a bit about that.
53:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, great.
53:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you mentioned that again because I was like Lucy has to mention the nonprofit because the lot of clubs started the nonprofit on their own as teens so it's super impressive the documentary we have a website let i club doc do see dot com again is the abuse not the use so yes we have a website and you can watch our two trailers there we still have like a fundraising campaign going on to for finishing funds for the doc.
53:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You can check that out and we have a mailing list so that people can stay updated about when there are screenings.
53:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, uh, the nonprofit simply put it's just a chain of uh, let eye clubs are on the country in the world and we send out a free newsletter.
53:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So subscribe.
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really cool.
54:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We have people to do art, right?
54:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the let eye club dot work.
54:05
[SPEAKER_01]: feel free to give money to the dog for us because we would love it and it's like Robin Hood type of thing because we'll just use your money to, you know, give people the dog, slash, give people free news letters, we make no money.
54:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So feel free.
54:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And we'll put links in the show notes for people to find the doc and the non-profit so they can go check it out, see the trailers, you know, maybe subscribe to the newsletter that you mentioned.
54:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate you both taking the time to give us some more insight on the Luddake Club and to let them know that this documentary is coming and they should certainly keep their eyes open for it.
54:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course, you know, when it's closer to coming out, I can certainly update people as well.
54:42
[SPEAKER_02]: But Amanda, Lucy, thank you so much for taking the time.
54:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate it.
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
54:50
[SPEAKER_02]: A man ahead of a clear is a writer, director, and educator, and Lucy Jackson is an early member of the Latte Club.
54:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Tech Won't Save Us is made in partnership with the nation magazine and is hosted by me, Paris Marks.
55:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Production is by Kyla Huesen.
55:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Tech Won't Save Us relies on the support of listeners like you to keep providing critical perspectives on the tech industry.
55:06
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55:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening and make sure to come back next week.