It’s late Friday afternoon, and three students are on Marston Quad covering The Eagles’ “Hotel California” with vocals and guitar.
Nearby, students seated on blankets munch on snacks, shuffle cards for a game of Egyptian Rat Slap and share insights from a class discussion.
A third group starts a game of spikeball as other students stretch out to work on The Student Life newspaper’s crossword.
Every student in the group of about two dozen is smiling and talking to those around them.
No one is scrolling. There’s not a smartphone in sight.
Welcome to the weekly meeting of The Luddite Club, which for the past year has promoted a healthy approach to technology for Pomona College students and others at The Claremont Colleges.
The idea for the club “actually came from a New York Times article that I read my sophomore year,” says co-founder Kaitlyn Ulalisa ’27, a politics and French major. “I was very, very, very heavily addicted to social media and my phone at one point in high school and a little bit into college. Then I got rid of everything.”
Ulalisa kept her phone but deleted all her social media accounts.
“My relationship with technology changed,” she says.
Ulalisa joined forces with Abhi Namala PZ ’27, a computer science major, to start the club. He too wanted what he calls a screen “detox” and a place to unwind with fellow students who were also holding themselves accountable in the “attention economy.”
“A lot of my classes and homework are behind screens,” says Namala. “I spent hours looking at my screen feeling burned out and not understanding why. ... I never had a space like this where I can truly be intentional about being away from technology.”
In spring 2025, Namala took a week away from social media. “Then I deactivated my Instagram,” he says, and “just got off all social media in general. I told Kaitlyn, ‘I’m fully on board with the [Luddite Club] mission.’”
Adelina Grotenhuis ’28, a science, technology and society major, learned about the Luddite Club from Ulalisa and attended the first club meeting.
“I felt calm, refreshed and happy,” she says, away from the “go, go, go that comes with always being with my phone and checking messages and emails. I was able to actually sit down, enjoy the present moment and really have a conversation and connect with other students without distraction.”
Grotenhuis has become a co-leader of the club, whose meetings have no concrete structure. “We want the focus of the weekly gatherings to be an intentionally tech-free space, used as students would like,” says Grotenhuis.
The leaders bring a red wagon filled with snacks, cards, arts and crafts supplies and balls of various types. “Then we lay out blankets, and people come,” says Ulalisa. “Every week—same time, same place, so people know where to find us.”
Ali Alattar ’28, a computer science major, has only attended two club hangouts so far, but expects to be back.
“Everybody’s talking,” he says. “At other clubs, you show up, and when you’re shy, you go on your phone, whereas here, you can’t do that. So everybody’s talking to each other. They’re not distracted.”
Leah Tovar ’27, who is studying neuroscience, participates in the club intermittently and has found that “we don't all know each other, but we're willing to take a chance and get to know one another.”
Ulalisa says she’d like to see the club expand next year to involve more students at The Claremont Colleges who want to use their technology in healthier ways—and even professors who have adopted tech-free classes.
In speaking with students who scroll by the hour and spend any spare moments watching Reels, “I’ve heard so many times that it isn’t what they want to be doing,” Ulalisa says. “They’ll delete Instagram or TikTok for a while and feel really good, but there’s this FOMO—fear of missing out: ‘What am I not seeing that’s being posted?’”
“There needs to be a collective buy-in” to the club, Ulalisa adds. “The vision is to create a movement where you don’t feel like you’re alone as you’re distancing yourself from these really addictive social media apps.”