Millennials Lead Growing Movement Against Smartphone Addiction

In a Brooklyn brownstone apartment, a group of millennials gathered for what’s becoming an increasingly common ritual. They dropped their phones into a metal colander for two hours of reading, drawing, and face-to-face conversation—a deliberate break from the screens that dominate modern life.

Miles away in a repurposed cardboard box factory, nearly 20 thirty-somethings participated in a different but related exercise. After briefly looking at their phones, they set the devices down and spent time examining their bare palms, then their neighbors’. The activity aimed to highlight the importance of engaging with real life instead of digital distractions.

These gatherings represent the front lines of a nascent but passionate movement pushing back against the omnipresence of smartphones and social media—a rebellion that’s gaining momentum nearly two decades after Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone.

“The products have become more insidious and more extractive, exploitative,” said Dan Fox, 38, the host of the Brooklyn gathering. Members of this growing movement “want to start a revolution,” he explained.

Fox, who works in marketing for the minimalist device company Light Phone, traces his involvement to a pivotal moment at a 2015 Tame Impala concert at Radio City Music Hall. Looking around, he was struck by how many attendees were recording the performance on their phones rather than immersing themselves in the experience.

“I realized the phones are literally getting in the way of the things I love,” Fox said.

The Light Phone represents one alternative gaining traction in this space. Unlike conventional smartphones, the company proudly advertises what their product lacks: “social media, clickbait news, email, an internet browser, or any other anxiety-inducing infinite feed.”

D. Graham Burnett, a historian of science at Princeton University and co-author of “Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement,” has emerged as a leading voice in what adherents call “attention activism.” His work, alongside MS NOW host Chris Hayes’ bestseller “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource,” forms part of a growing literary canon challenging tech’s grip on human attention.

Burnett argues the movement is fundamentally about reclaiming autonomy from time-consuming applications. People “need to rewild their attention,” he says. “Their attention is the fullness of their relationship to the world.”

Despite tech companies implementing features like screen time tracking and grayscale display modes intended to reduce device use, activists insist these measures fall far short. As Fox bluntly puts it, “They want to take down Big Tech.”

At Fox’s living room gathering, participants introduced themselves in a manner reminiscent of a support group. “I don’t feel good about my relationship with my phone. I feel like an addict,” admitted Riley Soloner, a theatrical clowning instructor who works as an usher at Carnegie Hall. He came prepared with a backpack filled with physical books.

The movement has expanded beyond American shores. In the Netherlands, the Offline Club hosts events in venues including a neo-Gothic cathedral. “We create our gatherings with different themes. One of them is connecting with yourself through creative activities or reading or writing or puzzling,” explained co-founder Ilya Kneppelhout. “Really something that makes you slow down and reflect, go inward.”

Similar groups have emerged across North America and in European countries including Spain, Italy, Croatia, France, and England, with Burnett expecting further global expansion.

Even educational institutions are experimenting with digital disconnection. At Oberlin College, members of the Harkness Housing and Dining Co-op implemented a technology ban in shared spaces earlier this year. Junior Ozzie Frazier, 21, reported positive outcomes: “People expressed a feeling of relief about not needing to be checking their emails, or texts or the news. That allowed us to spend a lot of time just talking to each other.”

During their month-long experiment, Frazier noted students rediscovering analog pleasures—checking out CDs from the library, enjoying arts and crafts nights, playing board games like Bananagrams, and attending live music performances.

Wilhelm Tupy, a former judo champion who now works as a business consultant, discovered the movement after finding Burnett’s book in a Vienna bookstore. He later visited the School of Radical Attention in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood, finding parallels between the focused “flow” required in his athletic career and contemporary attention challenges.

“Discipline is not enough nowadays,” Tupy observed. “It’s becoming more and more difficult to keep the attention and to keep the focus on goals and whatever you want to achieve and want to do.”

As mobile internet access continues to permeate virtually every aspect of modern life worldwide, this small but determined countermovement faces significant headwinds. Still, as participants point out, cultural transformations often begin with small, dedicated groups challenging the status quo—exactly what these digital detoxers aim to do.