\u201cI can\u2019t remember the last time I was at a party that was so packed in, literally like sardines,\u201d Goetze said during a recent call. \u201cEveryone was dancing, free flowing and just totally present.\u201d<\/p>\n
To prepare for any phone-related infractions, Goetze had stickers made to slap on any screens she spotted \u2014 a fun gimmick more than a serious penalty \u2014 but she said she didn\u2019t really need them. \u201cI think people just need an excuse, they need an outside force to buy into this idea that, \u2018OK, we\u2019re all gonna not use our phones,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an aspect of social isolation that comes from being the only one not on your phone. You\u2019re kind of awkwardly standing around, and everyone looks so important, looking down at their phones. So just by showing up to a no-phone party, you\u2019re stepping in with this expectation. People bought in.\u201d<\/p>\n
@askcatgpt<\/a> <\/p>\n No phone party in LA, this Friday, October 17. RSVP at link in bio!! WE ARE MAKING IT 4.2% THIS WEEKEND BABY Dont act like you\u2019ve never seen a bra before<\/p>\n \u266c original sound \u2013 CatGPT<\/a> <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Goetze said she wasn\u2019t sure if 7 or 70 people would show up to El Cid. Then hundreds of Angelenos dressed in retrofuturist Y2K fashion (think low-rise jeans paired with baby tees and metallic handbags) poured into the venue with a shared mission: to say bye, bye, bye to their phones.<\/p>\n She had a vision that the party would play out like a middle school dance from the early aughts, and it did \u2014 a dance circle formed in the center of the club where partygoers took turns bustin\u2019 a move in the center. People took flash photos on actual cameras, rather than endless selfies to share on the gram. And maybe the most stand-out success of the night \u2014 people who\u2019d never met before were tucked away chatting and making new friends. Goetze said a large number of the party-goers were people who\u2019d arrived alone.<\/p>\n She even witnessed an old-school meet-cute that didn\u2019t involve swiping right \u2014 a guy gave a girl his number by writing it on a bar napkin.<\/p>\n Under Goetze\u2019s post sharing the party\u2019s success and plans for a nationwide (or maybe global) tour, hundreds of followers commented with cities they hope she\u2019ll bring the party to next: \u201cPhoenix Az! Let\u2019s go!,\u201d \u201cTulsa please the South needs this,\u201d \u201cBring this to Seattle,\u201d \u201cBoise Idaho needs you.\u201d Followers outside of America also rallied behind the idea, asking her to come to Paris, Toronto, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n As for Goetze taking the no-phone party on the road, she said it\u2019s definitely in the works.<\/p>\n The initial idea for the event was a rather spontaneous one, but the need for a night out and unplugged stemmed from an alarming statistic Goetze read in the Atlantic back in January. \u201cAmericans need to party more<\/a>,\u201d detailed that only 4.1% of Americans attended or hosted a social event on an average weekend or holiday in 2023, according to a study published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n In the video announcing the party, Goetze read from the piece: \u201cMany Americans are alone, friendless, isolated, undersexed, sick of online dating, glued to their couches, and transfixed by their phones,\u201d she said, standing on her bed in sunglasses and a hoodie.<\/p>\n As a full-time content creator who pays her rent by making videos for people to watch from their phones, she said she was sick of just being part of the problem rather than part of the solution.<\/p>\n But since launching her social pages a year ago, her ethos has hinged on balance.\u00a0\u201cI make content helping people break down AI and get off their phones. Basically, talking about how we can live in harmony with technology without completely throwing our phones in the ocean,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Goetze, originally from Chicago but an Angeleno for eight years now, is uniquely qualified to educate the internet on the subject. She has a degree in science, technology and society with a focus on media and communication from Stanford University. \u201cThat\u2019s a mouthful, but it basically is an interdisciplinary major that looks at how the technology that we build impacts humans and the society that we live in and vice versa,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n Catherine Goetze\u2019s no-phone Y2K throwback party at El Cid in Silver Lake. (Photo courtesy of Goetze)\n<\/p>\n Catherine Goetze\u2019s no-phone Y2K throwback party at El Cid in Silver Lake. (Photo courtesy of Goetze)\n<\/p>\n One of the styles of Catherine Goetze\u2019s physical phone available for preorder online. (Courtesy of Physical Phones, Julia Harris)\n<\/p>\n Show Caption<\/p>\n 1 of 3<\/p>\n Catherine Goetze\u2019s no-phone Y2K throwback party at El Cid in Silver Lake. (Photo courtesy of Goetze)\n<\/p>\n Expand<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI want to teach people how to use tech like a billionaire. If you look at the people who are in positions of power within the tech industry, do they use technology to their advantage? Absolutely. These people are on the cutting edge and are constantly learning about and understanding how technology is changing the world that they live in, and figuring out how they can take advantage of it to improve their lives, build businesses, create support and wealth for them and their families, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n But at the same time, Goetze said these power players don\u2019t let their children scroll endlessly on Instagram all day, and they don\u2019t let them stare at an iPad for the first three years of their lives. \u201cThere\u2019s a very interesting connection between the people who are the most educated about how to get the most out of technology, and also understand all of the downsides. And to me, you can\u2019t have one without the other.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, the New York Times published a piece<\/a> on a movement among college students in New York. Members of the Lamp Club are Gen Z and millennials with Luddite dreams and analog wishes, who organize to protest the hyper-reliance on technology.<\/p>\n According to a recent study published by Consumer Affairs<\/a>, cell phone users look at their phones 144 times a day on average and spend approximately 4 hours and 30 minutes on them every day. Nearly 57% of Americans consider themselves \u201cmobile phone addicts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think the spirit behind that is right,\u201d said Goetze of the Lamp Club movement. \u201cBut I think where that mission gets lost on 90% of people is that it\u2019s not realistic to say, \u2018Get off of your iPhone and never use technology.\u2019 It\u2019s simply not the world that we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy mission is to strike that middle ground. There is so much that is valid about how this technology has drastically and negatively impacted us, and there\u2019s also so much that\u2019s happening that\u2019s going to change the world that we live in. Basically, how do you use tech and not let tech use you?\u201d<\/p>\n One of Goetze\u2019s many creative approaches to feeding both sides of the issue is the company she launched this year: Physical Phones<\/a>. She bought a landline a few years ago and hijacked it to be Bluetooth-compatible. She liked the idea of answering a telephone of yore rather than being glued to her cell phone. The phone was a conversation starter whenever Goetze hosted people at her house, and the chatter online around cellphone addiction was increasing.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I decided to make a video talking about it, thinking maybe 20 or 30 people would order them, and then I\u2019d just order the parts myself, make them myself, and then ship them off,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we ended up doing $118,000 in sales in 72 hours. And we\u2019ve topped over a quarter million dollars in revenue from just a couple of viral videos. So that\u2019s when I was like, oh, f\u2014, we need a different plan.\u201d<\/p>\n When Goetze saw the preorders for the physical phones skyrocket, she called in the cavalry. \u201cI called the smartest people I know who work in e-commerce and have done product development and hardware development with China,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Please, help me. Please, please, please help me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow we have a warehouse, and we have a manufacturer in China, and they\u2019re doing the first run, and we\u2019re getting our final production samples pretty soon, and we\u2019re hoping to ship out by Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n Goetze, despite being a content creator who educates people on advancing tech, also tries to practice the balance that she preaches. She said reading books, including \u201cThe Anxious Generation\u201d by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and \u201cStolen Focus: Why You Can\u2019t Pay Attention \u2014 and How to Think Deeply Again\u201d by Johann Hari were game-changers for understanding life in the age of modern tech.<\/p>\n @askcatgpt<\/a> <\/p>\n Unaware use = reflexively using your phone without noticing when or why you started. R u reading this caption because the video started to get boring? Ur gonna check the comments next huh? It\u2019s ok. That\u2019s your brain looking for more rustling leaves in the Savannah. If that doesn\u2019t make sense, you just haven\u2019t gotten far enough in the video yet. Force 1= tech companies. They get paid more $ the longer you stay here, so they wanna hook u. Bad. Force 2= about two thousand centuries of evolution. Your brain is hardwired to reward noticing novel, unexpected things. Your feed is a FLOOD of novel, unexpected things. The rewards feel so good, it almost feels like a trance-like state. Dont feel bad. We all have monkey brains. How do u think we got here?!!! But u can protect ur monkey brain. In the next video I\u2019ll explain 3 tricks I used to get off of social media for 5 years. Like and follow and I will explainnnn<\/p>\n \u266c original sound \u2013 CatGPT<\/a> <\/p>\n On her channel, she shares practical solutions for spending less time on her phone. One hack is using an alarm clock in the morning instead of her iPhone alarm. She also changes the icons on her phone to black and white to trick the brain into thinking the screen is boring.<\/p>\n \u201cThe one that\u2019s made the biggest difference on my life is not looking at my phone for the first 30 minutes<\/a> of the day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I can not look at my phone from the moment I wake up to 30 minutes after that, I notice a significant decrease in my overall screen time throughout the course of the rest of the 12 hours that I\u2019m awake.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n
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