April 21, 2026, 7:01 a.m. ET
NEW YORK — The alcohol is flowing, music is bumping and partygoers are writhing against each other on the dance floor.
I reach into the back pocket of my jeans to capture the moment with my phone, and realize the spot is empty.
I’m at a phone-free party in Brooklyn, and it’s nothing like I expected.
A flyer for the party promised “a celebration of social life as it’s meant to be: free from the grip of greedy tech platforms” along with immersive art, rituals and DJ sets.
By the time I reach the unmarked door in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg neighborhood, I can already hear the house music pulsing through the walls. Inside, I hand over my phone to an organizer, who places it into a cubby alongside dozens of others. In its place, I carry a clunky old-school microphone, a notepad and a pencil.
I’m 24, and for the first time at a party, I’m about to be offline without an escape.
Gen Z’s growing phone-free movement
“Who found out about this on Instagram?” organizer Nick Plante shouts early into the night.
No one raises their hand.
That’s because you have to be offline − but in the know − to find out about these somewhat underground parties.
Partygoers tell me they found out about tonight’s event from word of mouth and events newsletters like Nonsense NYC and Red Calendar. Another girl came alone after seeing the party on a sidewalk flyer that afternoon.
These partygoers are part of a growing movement of young people who are fed up with the grip technology has on them. There are the 20-somethings using flip phones, and influencers who only go online to post about embracing analog bags and dumbphones. In October, Gen-Z led groups took over New York’s Tompkins Square Park for a “Delete Day” dedicated to helping young people escape their smartphones.
For Plante, 25, and co-organizer Kyle Barnes, 27, parties are a natural extension of that idea.
“We can’t just give someone a self-help book,” says Plante. “We can’t just give someone a block on a few apps, tell them to chain their iPhone to the wall, when really what they’re looking for is to be propped up in a community of people.”
The event’s organizers want this party to be a respite from the fear of being filmed for a viral video, an often-unspoken concern that lingers around young people on a night out. And they’re not alone.
Andrew Yang’s phone-free parties have drawn more than 1,600 RSVPs, and hundreds turned up to influencer Catherine Goetze’s no-phone Y2K throwback party in Los Angeles in October. In recent years, Brooklyn and Queens nightclub hot spots like Nowadays, Elsewhere, House of Yes, Basement, Signal and Refuge have adopted policies to place stickers over phone cameras or ban phones on the dance floor.
And being at this party, I’m starting to understand the appeal.
At first, I stick close to the friends I’ve convinced to come with me. Without my phone, I feel like I’ve lost my safety net. But in the absence of the option to scroll or check my friends’ locations, my conversations with strangers start to feel easier. That anxiety I’ve had on long nights out that an unflattering video or photograph will be posted online or sent in a group chat? It fades away.
It’s as if an invisible social barrier has been lowered, and everyone is on the same playing field.
“It definitely feels different,” says Paul Hurson, 31, who usually parties with his smartphone. “I am very proud of myself to be able to just sort of linger and be around people that I don’t know without having that reflex to get on my phone.”
Then, the party takes a turn.
A couple is making out in the corner when a partygoer cuts through the music with a megaphone. He introduces himself as part of a startup called “Justice AI,” telling a tale about a fictional company obsessed with maximizing shareholder value and harvesting user data.
He points to the back of the room, where a ladder, drills and stacks of cardboard sit.
“A data center is being built in Bushwick!” someone declares.
Soon, volunteers circulate through the crowd asking for strands of hair and snippets of personal information, as if building a dataset in real time. One tells me that I could be rich if I invest.
The bit is intentionally ridiculous, and clearly meant to mock AI companies and the stories that have popped up about their founders. The shtick is a theme throughout the night, and the joke lands because it’s a parody of the same systems and surveillance that many here say they’re trying to break away from.
Sonya Saydakova, a 23-year-old partygoer, helps pour drinks with names like “Shareholderdonnay” white wine and “Big Brother” beer. She tells me she switched to using a flip phone a year ago. When she first got rid of her smartphone, she felt “incredibly isolated.”
But now, she knows more than 30 people in New York who have done the same.
“This feels like the way that I want to interact with the world and with people,” Saydakova says.
‘Our zeitgeist is at a breaking point’
Around 11 p.m., someone ushers me outside to the patio.
A girl in Doc Martens, a white chiffon scarf and a plaid coat guides us through a somatic ritual.
We place our hands on our hearts.
“This is the first piece of technology we ever owned,” she says. “Breathe in, breathe out.”
As the night goes on, things get funkier.
In a later activity, we’re asked to envision our life without technology’s grip on us, and shout out answers as we walk in a circle.
What if we all laughed? (Laughs ensue.) What if we all went upside down? (I fold forward, touching my toes.) What if no one went hungry? What if we could all be free? What if we all shimmied? What if we all said AHHHH! What if we all howled at the moon?
We howl. Someone in the middle of the circle blows bubbles while someone else plays a harmonica. We cup soil in our hands and plant seeds into a bowl, a symbolic act of turning our wishes into something tangible.
If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d now think I was at a séance.
But by the end of the night, I’m starting to see the bigger picture − strange rituals and all. I’ve talked to more strangers at this party than I have in the past month combined.
The grand finale of the event comes just before 1 a.m. back on the dance floor, when the crowd smashes the cardboard data center into a heap of shreds and duct tape.
I planned to stay for an hour or two. When I ask someone the time, I’m shocked to learn it’s nearly 2 a.m.
I know that when I step back outside, I’ll check my texts and feel a quick hit of dopamine when I scroll on Instagram. But for a moment longer, I’m in a version of the world where none of those outside social norms exist.
The organizers and partygoers know this tech-free mentality won’t prevail everywhere. But they want to bring pieces of it into everyday life.
Telo.haus, the warehouse that hosted the party, has stopped posting on Instagram in favor of an events newsletter, while other groups have tacked flyers around the city. Plante runs a low-tech newsletter. Barnes sends out event lists to friends. Saydakova is working on a collective for artists.
“I think our zeitgeist is at a breaking point of not wanting this technology anymore” says Saydakova. “The desire is there, the tools are also there, but people just lack the vision for implementing how they would want to structure their lives differently.”
Most of the people here, myself included, aren’t giving up on their phones anytime soon.
But this party has offered me a glimpse into what my social life could look like if we were less chained to our devices. At the very least, it’s left me questioning my relationship with technology.
Stepping onto the L train back home to Manhattan, that feels like the point.
Rachel Hale’s role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. Reach her at rhale@usatoday.com and@rachelleighhale on X.
