The No Phone Club
Gen-Z Embraces the Unplugged '70s & ‘80s By Disconnecting From Their Phones for One NYC Night
In nearly every pocket or hand—or, if fortunate enough to keep some distance—in every bag or home, a slab of lifeless metal illuminates a luring glow. A once needy assistant now turned overbearing boss, the cellphone remains the most practical enemy to oppress society. A device of instant gratification with the consequence of constant dread, we have become putty to the cellphone, molding to its every change, only becoming more needy of its benefits with every upgrade.
As a member of Generation Z, it's hard to imagine a time when silence was true quiet and not the steady hum that disturbs the modern air. Today, a walk through the park pairs well with a podcast beaming through headphones. A homemade dinner would feel unfinished without the background noise of a YouTube video to keep from any possible ennui. A night at a club is forgettable if not for an Instagram story of the venue's disco ball. I'm told interactions were once true and not pretentiously performed for the impending social sphere that preys upon the made-up importance determined by who you know, when you know it, and where you're going.
Vasilios Christofilakos, a Fashion Institute of Technology Footwear and Accessories professor who grew up in the New York nightlife in the mid-70s, knows the scene of no cell phones better than most. Ironically, being unplugged created more connection; it was a time of fanciful dancing at clubs like Studio 54 and nonchalantly socializing with stars like Cher and Grace Jones.
"We wore armor, not physically, but we were taught that; you have to know how to survive in the Big Apple," says Christofilakos, "riding the subways after midnight, getting the cab driver to take you home—you had to be on guard."
Without cellphones, people were naturally able to genuinely socialize, which in turn forged friendships and created a community of clubgoers that was powerful and vibrant. Clubbing was glamorous rather than glamorized and dramatic rather than dramatized.
Sitting in his fabulous den, bedazzled with images of his luxurious past, Christofilakos spills his tales of the days before the disco ball's mainstreaming and cellphone-less nights of beepers and payphones. "So many celebrities would dance with you rather than avoid you," he says, "you were living what you would read in the newspaper."
Scenes of the ‘70s and ‘80s dance in my head; the thought of smoky rooms filled with the aroma of sweat from free-handed dancing deems so distant from today's sardine tin clubs, sweat only produced from the lack of fans and excess of people crowding the DJ booth.
“I walk into Studio 54,” says Christofilakos, “and I’m standing, mesmerized by the lights, and this woman”—iconic celebrity makeup artist and author of Disco Beauty, Sandy Linter—“comes up to me, grabs me by my right shoulder, and says, ‘Oh no honey you don’t stand on the dance floor and sway, you dance on the dance floor with me!’ and pulls me on the dance floor. You meet other people and hang out with the crowd, and that was the beauty of it.”
These fading images of a less-commercialized life, visions of unworried starlets and average joes in cowboy boots gallivanting beneath strobe lights, haunt my brain, rendering me curious: what would it be like to navigate without the modern assistance of a cell phone? Could a person who grew up not knowing such a technologically undeveloped life, a product of Gen-Z, such as myself, survive without the aid of my iPhone? Even for just one night?
Night falls, and instead of ritualistically hitting do not disturb, my three friends and I abandon our phones locked behind our apartment doors for the evening. Tonight's rendezvous we officially named "No Phone Club." Our goal: To survive navigating the streets of New York City's nightlife, technologically independent, for the first time.
Left without the digital sense of security, we are forced to survive, aided only by our surroundings, like our parents once did, with no Google Maps, Uber, or SMS—a seemingly champagne problem that resonates so significantly in today's tech-ingrained culture.
Before we even leave for our adventure, Rob Dudash, 21, a fellow FIT student who has already left his phone in his Manhattan dorm, cries, "I feel like I'm losing my mind without my fucking phone."
Joining Rob and I are Chloë Gibbon, 21, and Emily Barquin, 21, both students at FIT living in the city who have never been on such a venture. "I hope the night goes smoothly," Chloë hesitantly says, "I'm mainly concerned about navigation, but even if we get lost, I think we're all capable enough to find our way."
The first stop of the night is a bar called Pieces, a little Greenwich Village gay hangout that politely sits between a nail salon and an eyewear shop. This stop, made in the spur of the moment, is not the night’s leading destination but a place to let the first vodka soda settle.
As we step into the assuming bar, its radiant, rainbow aesthetic makes you feel like you are transported into the ‘80s, which is quite fitting. Between the glittering of the various metallic streamers, giant disco balls, and blinding spotlights attempting to follow the drag queen performing a rendition of some ‘80s hit, we are blinded when trying to find our way to the bathroom.
Once inside, I find myself at my first feeling of technological yearning; the single-stall bathroom, drowning in an overcast red, would be a perfect place for a mirror selfie. I stare in the mirror, trying to capture the moment, took a sigh, and noted mentally to come back another time, a note that would've been written in my notes app (or not because I wouldn't have to go back in the first place).
After an hour of posing in the mirrored walls, getting lost in the infinite music videos on the small TV screen above the bar, cracking each other's backs on the dance floor, and having more discussions with each other than we've ever had with Kesha booming over our words, we got bored and decided to move on. Other than a need to Shazam a song and take a few pictures, we leave our first stop with a hopeful feeling that maybe a night without our phones is more of a relief than a restraint.
After an uncomplicated three-minute stroll to the next stop, we are greeted so kindly by the doorman, an unusually pleasant encounter outside of a bar, but one you would only assume would happen at a bar called "The Happiest Hour." Inside, the space is crammed with reserved twenty-something-year-olds glaring at their iPhones. We scoff at the idea of having a cell phone, as if we weren’t in their position last weekend, and skip downstairs, hoping to find livelier energy in the basement.
We prance down each step, surprised to witness a jazzy ambiance of people fixated in conversation under a dimly lit oasis. The room had the just-got-off-work feeling, that Friday feeling, relaxed but eager to get the night started. We order 4 martinis at the bar and make our way to the dance floor. Before a sip, the bartender taps Emily on the shoulder to let her know her card declined. Emily had received a new card but neglected to activate it through her bank card app—a now nearly impossible task without her phone. Looking disoriented in disbelief, the bartender tapped my card, crisis averted.
We dance, with fans blowing our hair elegantly, channeling the spirit of Charlie’s Angels, as the room sways in a peaceful haze, R&B melodies prancing around our four-person huddle. We find ourselves forgetting about the room around us, as we spin through the music, stretching our bodies from wall to wall, ceiling to floor. I’m awoken from the trance when I mistakenly trip over a man seated at a booth who’s hunched over his phone, completely isolated from the world around him. What email, text message, tweet, or Instagram post could be more interesting than the Drake song filling the air and a martini in hand? I feel a new pet peeve forming as the night proceeds and the screenagers’ camouflage fading, their presence becoming increasingly more intrusive.
With a glance at Rob's watch, we find it's already 11:30 p.m., so we clasp hands, file in line, and exit the bar, saying goodnight to the welcoming doorman on the way out.
The next stop is The Blond, a new dance-centric club with a spiral staircase entrance that comes at the price of $20 shots. An important aspect of this destination is that it's hosted in a boutique Nolita hotel, which is a 30-minute trek away—something we are all currently unaware of.
Our shoes scuff along the sidewalks as we ignorantly walk under the saturated city lights. Hoping to stumble upon SoHo at any minute, Rob claims, "Once we're in SoHo, I'll know where I'm going," and we blindly follow his lead. Two minutes go by, and Chloë complains, "I wish I could play music," a routine time-killer on the walk from one event to the next.
Each moment without a phone is equally thrilling and nerve-wracking. Not having to innately scroll or habitually glance at notifications while not needing to update anyone makes the night more exciting. We each feel fully present in the music, the crowd, and the New York atmosphere; the night is becoming therapeutic.
As we're looking for someone to ask for directions, we are shocked to stumble across a New York University map, as if this is a rare, unlikely invention. Chaos ensues as we each point to a different street, insisting it's the right one, while bystanders stare at our group as though we had just time-traveled from a foreign era. We decide our route, around Washington Square Park, and make our way down the street, "I'm not stressed at all… I know exactly where I'm going," Rob says confidently.
As we walk towards NoHo, panic quickly ensues as we feel drops of rain, the beginning of what could be a treacherous downpour or a brief mist (but who's to say without the weather app at hand). After a five-minute debate, we flag one down a cab with the wave of an arm and hop in. "Corner of Crosby and Howard," Rob tells the driver, the address glued to his memory like it’s his second home.
As we sit in the cab with no device to plug into an aux cord, we are left with the quietness of the humming engine and a stoic cab driver on a long shift, whose reaction when told about our adventure is "hm… nice." We find ourselves reflecting on the night's on-goings; "We heard Sabrina Carpenter's ‘Espresso’ three times!" Rob notes. "I noticed that… I feel like I'm so much more aware of my surroundings without my phone," says Chloë.
After a relieving ride, we hop out of the cab, say “thank you” to the driver, and stand in line for The Blond. Not five minutes later, we flash our IDs at the bouncer and make our way up the classic spiral staircase. Once we open the doors, pressure sets in, as we now must find entertainment from our surroundings in an unknown place. Shuffling through the crowds, my eyes meet some friendly faces and other not-so-friendly faces. As we stand in our little huddle in front of the DJ table, I look around at my three friends I've forced out tonight, all a little wary with anxiety, eyes wandering, scoping out the venue.
We dance among the tens of stationary millennials, and in this moment, I don’t find myself lost in the rhythm but caught in a dizzying crowd of ghosts. Everyone is to themselves, only rarely hauled out of their trance from the push and pull of the moshpit. An elbow shove from a brawny 6-foot-something man creates a domino effect of hostility: a drink splashed to the ground, a heavy stomp of a loafer on my kitten-heeled-exposed toes, and many blaming glares jump from one person to the next as the single push circulates through the crowd. Nevertheless, we sway, shimmy, and strut all through the night, maintaining our focus on each other, attempting to ignore the numerous stagnant men who are somehow doing too much while doing nothing at all.
The music starts to fade, and we feel fulfilled by this stop on the trip, so we parade off to the next spot, not before asking a stranger if we can check their weather app to confirm we won't be drenched once we step outside. We roam away from the club to a nearby staircase to catch our breath and reconvene. "I feel like I would've been overstimulated with a phone," says Emily, "I'm glad I didn't have it in there."
We sit outside until the rain begins again, rapidly washing away our indecisiveness. We agree to go to a familiar spot, Paul's Casablanca, a ‘70s-themed Moroccan nightclub owned by Paul Sevigny, the brother of iconic actress Chloe Sevigny. Now, how do we get there? We hail a cab, and Rob leans into the passenger window, "Do you know Paul's Casablanca?" visual puzzlement falls on the cab driver's face as he inquires for an address. "It's on the West side; can we look up an address on your GPS?" Chloë asks, and without hesitation, the cab driver frustratedly shakes his head and drives off.
Emily and I approach a group outside of The Blond, quickly getting an address: 305 Spring Street. Quietly chanting the address so as not to forget, we head to the main road to find more taxis. Stuck with our arms in the air, all the empty cabs seem to be called via phone and are on their way to their passengers. Finally, a taxi pulls over, and we calmly celebrate. "Can you take us to 305 Spring Street?" I ask, "No," the driver says, immediately pulling away. "This is so much harder than I expected," says Rob.
After four denials, we finally get a cab, and like babies with candy, we instantly start pushing the taxi’s shiny backseat buttons and fidgeting with the TV monitor at our knees—clearly missing our phones.
We pull up to the Casablanca doors, where an array of drunken people at their nights-end wait for their Ubers on the stoops throughout the street. We exit the night's last taxi and skip through the doors to find a scene that is also dying out. Along the way, we neglect the time, only just now realizing it's 3 a.m., and the party will die shortly; the clubs close at 4 a.m. as it isn't the ‘80s anymore.
We stay for a few songs, spinning around the open dance floor, unused by our lifeless peers lounging in the booths. Exerting the last of our energy, we twirl our arms through the air, slicing through the warm golden lights with our fiery dance. We flee Casablanca, stumbling through the hefty velvet curtain, past the stoops where the still-drunk kids undecidedly still sit. “Let’s walk this way,” I suggest, going off of pure memory and yearning for my bed.
On our intuitive walk to the train station, we make a new discovery, the side-of-the-road LinkNYC billboards kiosk has Google Maps. The 1 train is just six minutes away. Chloë takes a picture of the map with her digital camera for future reference, and we walk the six minutes to Houston Station.
On the grimy seats of the subway, as the four surviving (and only) members of the No Phone Club, we sit cuddled together, reminiscing on the unique experience we all shared: "I'm kind of sad to go back to my phone now," says Emily. "Same. I like being unplugged because you don't have to think about everything else happening that you're not around for," Chloë states, "I was able to just do my own thing, and you don't really need to know what other people are doing all the time."
FIT’s Social Media Marketing professor, Nicole Rutsch, echos the idea that today’s phone usage is excessive, “I completely understand that sharing these moments has become a way for us to connect with others, but I think we could all benefit from a bit more mindfulness in how we approach it,” she says. “I’d love to see more people stepping away from their screens and immersing themselves in the present.”
The club scene is socially disconnected—we’re beside one another in the crowd, but we’re not together. The collective culture lacks social awareness while being heavily aware of online perception. “Platforms like Instagram and TikTok glamorize certain experiences, leading people to focus on creating moments that are ‘Instagram-worthy’ rather than being fully present,” says Rutsch.
Rutsch recommends prioritizing face-to-face interactions, practicing being present, and collectively shifting towards phone-free environments to enrich relationships and foster a culture based on mindfulness and empathy. “The constant distraction of checking phones can diminish the quality of those in-person interactions,” she explains, “when individuals are more focused on their devices than the people in front of them, it can lead to a lack of attention and depth in conversations. This fragmented attention often results in missed opportunities for meaningful connection.”
Although I’ve never experienced the connection of community like that of the electric ‘70s and ‘80s party-going crowd, this night has sparked a strong feeling of longing and loss as I reflect on the modern-day nightlife experience. Ironically, most of these clubs’ designs took inspiration from such years, which leaves one question: how is it we want to emulate a ‘70s club scene but neglect the most important part—the people?
People were once unafraid, unapologetic, and unrestrained in clubs, but with social media praying on our attention, we’ve lost authenticity due to the ever-looming Big Brother and unrealistic expectations.
So good