The Phone-Free Club
Most of us check our phones many times a day. A recent survey in the coastal town of Port Arlen found that young adults there spend almost five hours a day looking at a screen. Many of them said they often felt tired and stressed, but they did not know how to change their habits.
In 2023, a librarian called Mira Holt decided to do something about this. She started a club that meets every Saturday afternoon in the town library. The rules are simple: when members arrive, they put their phones in a wooden box at the door, and they cannot take them out for three hours.
During these three hours, members can read, play board games, draw or just talk to each other. At first, only eight people came. Now the club has more than ninety members, and on busy days the library has had to open a second room.
Members say the club has changed their lives in small but important ways. One student explained that she now sleeps better because she has stopped using her phone in bed. Another member, a bus driver, has learned to play chess at the club and now plays with his son every evening.
Not everyone likes the idea. Some people think that phones are useful for learning and that it is not necessary to give them up, even for a few hours. Mira agrees that technology can be very helpful. "I don't want people to throw their phones away," she says. "I just want them to remember how to enjoy time without a screen."
Next year, the club is going to start a weekday group for older people, who often feel lonely. Volunteers will teach them simple hobbies such as gardening and painting, and members of the Saturday club will help to organise it.
