# Pushback
## Tue Dec 5- Pushback
### Reflection on Stacey L. Morrison, Ricardo Gomez, 2014, [Pushback: Expressions of resistance to the ‘evertime’ of constant online connectivity](https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4902) and Alex Vadukul, 2023, [‘Luddite’ teens don’t want your likes](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/style/teens-social-media.html)

I have had an iPhone since I was 13, and truly I cannot remember what life was like before that. I sometimes joke with my grandmother, teasing by saying that I simply wouldn’t know how to navigate a new airport and scan my boarding pass without my phone. Though an exaggeration, I believe there is an element of truth to it- I cannot for the life of me remember what I did in my free time before Netflix, texting, and Tiktok were at my fingertips.

My best friend sent me a video once about the beauty of throwing one’s phone away and moving to a flip phone. Ironically, the video she sent was a Tiktok, but the sentiment really did appeal to me. Like Gomez discusses, there are five main “motivations for pushing back against technology and the technology user behaviors that we found emerging from the literature” (Gomez). The one that resonates the most with me was “taking back control: users pushing back to regain control of their time and energy” (Gomez). I hope one day to recover the hobbies I had as a child, to remember what it was like to choose to engage with my imagination rather than doom-scroll.

The New York Times article on the Luddite club was truly a beautiful story. I so strongly admire the highschoolers in that club. I do my best to choose to read, write, and play my guitar in my free time but I don’t think I have the backbone to make as drastic a jump as they did.

The question about classism in reclaiming flip phones and rejecting media is an interesting one. I would agree that it is certainly privileged in the sense that some teenagers do not have the means to reject their peers and wander around New York City as a means of entertainment. However, classism seems like a bit of a stretch to me. This seems like a conundrum with no correct solution. I am of the sentiment that people can do what they like as long as it is not negatively affecting others, and the Luddite club is simply enjoying their young lives unconventionally. I think that is a beautiful thing.

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/EQZ4xyUHScIPHa0wbR" width="270" height="480" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/retro-festival-concert-EQZ4xyUHScIPHa0wbR">via GIPHY</a></p>