Lois Shafier dropped her mobile phone into a deposit box, happy in the knowledge that for the next two hours she would be completely offline. No pings, beeps or distractions.
“I’m bad at switching off. I have a proper addiction to my phone,” she said as she headed into an event organised by The Offline Club in London.
Tickets for the two-hour “digital detox” evening were snatched up when they went on sale, with more than 150 young adults aged mostly between 20 and 35 eager to ditch their screens for an IRL (in real life) evening.
They each paid £9.50 (US$12) for the chance to get away from phones and make in-person human connections.
“We are the technology generation, but we’re tired of it,” said Bianca Bolum. “We want to reconnect with the real world.”
The 25-year-old jeweller had come on her own and was hoping to meet new people.
