Episode Summary
Executive Summary: The episode examines the Brooklyn-born Luddite Club and its wider movement: teenagers and young adults rejecting or limiting smartphones, social media, and AI to reclaim attention, autonomy, and community. Guests Amanda Hannah McClear and Lucy Jackson argue that tech dependence is engineered, not inevitable, and that opting out can improve friendships, creativity, and agency while challenging classist or simplistic narratives about “Luddism.”
Main Topics: Origins of the Luddite Club (Priority: 5/5): The club began at Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn with Logan and Jameson, who organized students around critique of smartphones and digital life, later broadening into a bigger-tent anti-social-media, anti-big-tech community. Personal paths to tech refusal (Priority: 5/5): McClear and Jackson describe different routes into the club: McClear through years of struggling with smartphone/social-media compulsion and Jackson through a naturally low-social-media, bookish orientation plus friendship with early organizers. Community as the core of the movement (Priority: 5/5): Both guests emphasize that the club is not just about flipping phones off; it is a social space that makes non-dominant tech choices feel possible, practical, and non-isolating. Everyday life without a smartphone (Priority: 4/5): They discuss practical workarounds for QR codes, maps, cameras, and messaging, arguing that many obstacles are surmountable and that inconvenience is often overstated. Mental health, attention, and self-blame (Priority: 5/5): The conversation links social media to anxiety, distraction, and cognitive offloading while stressing that individuals should not blame themselves alone because platforms are designed for compulsive use. AI skepticism and cognitive offloading (Priority: 4/5): The guests criticize generative AI for encouraging dependence, weakening learning, and displacing jobs, though McClear allows there may be narrow beneficial uses. Documentary and movement-building (Priority: 4/5): McClear explains the forthcoming documentary as an attempt to disprove the inevitability of technology and show what people gain by opting out, while also documenting the spread of Luddite clubs internationally.
Key Arguments: Tech companies shape behavior through persuasive design and physical-device choices, but users still have agency to resist. The Luddite Club is deliberately a big-tent, welcoming movement that includes people at different points on the tech-limiting spectrum. Community is essential: a club normalizes tech refusal and prevents it from becoming a privileged or solitary choice. Giving up a smartphone is often less hard than people assume; most needs can be handled through planning, asking people for help, or using a computer. Removing social media and constant smartphone access can improve focus, free time, and real-world relationships. Many mental health harms associated with social media come from the design of the platforms and the pressure to compare, not from personal weakness. AI use in education can undermine learning through cognitive offloading and should be treated critically rather than accepted as inevitable. The documentary aims to counter doom narratives by showing positive alternatives, skills gained, and the possibility of autonomy. The term “Luddite” should be rehabilitated to mean opposition to abusive uses of technology, not opposition to all technology. Tech resistance is framed as a self-knowledge practice: identifying limits, improving one’s life, and choosing tools intentionally.
Data Points: Original club location: Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn - Where the Luddite Club began and where early organizers recruited members Documented club spread: About 30 Luddite clubs around the country - McClear’s update on the growth of the movement in the U.S. International clubs: A few clubs in Australia, Canada, France, and Amsterdam - McClear describes the movement expanding beyond the United States McClear's early social media exposure: 14 to 28 - She says she was on social media from age 14 to 28 before quitting McClear's age now: 32 - Used to contextualize her years of platform use and critique Club meeting cadence: Once a week for an hour - McClear describes the club as low-burden and accessible First meeting location: Grand Army Plaza / Brooklyn Public Library steps - McClear describes attending an early club meeting site No-screen example of city exploration: West 4th Street and Washington Square Park are about three blocks apart - McClear illustrates how a dumb phone improved her sense of place in New York
Pivotal Quotes: "The main also, in addition to that, one of the main, like, I guess, arguments against Luddites generally is that it's like a classist movement, all this stuff. I think the idea of creating a community in order to not gatekeep a lifestyle is the opposite of classists." — Lucy Jackson: On why the club matters beyond individual phone choices "I have written at the top, disprove the inevitability of tech." — Amanda Hannah McClear: On the guiding purpose of the documentary "It just depends on you, right? Like, you have your limits, you have the things that you enjoy... it’s all about the individual." — Lucy Jackson: On what it means to be a Luddite in 2026
Implications: The episode reframes tech refusal as practical, communal, and modern—not nostalgic. For listeners, it suggests meaningful resistance starts with small, reversible choices; for the industry, it highlights growing skepticism toward compulsive design, AI normalization, and app dependence.
About Tech Wont Save Us
Silicon Valley wants to shape our future, but why should we let it? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its big promises, and the people behind them. Tech Won’t Save Us challenges the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable. It’s not your usual tech podcast.