Your phone, we now do everything with it. That is precisely why it is so difficult to stay away from it. The Offline Club tries to stimulate this by holding phone-free sessions in cafes.
The project was set up by Ilya Kneppelhout, among others. He and a friend tried to survive without a phone for a weekend. That worked, and so the idea arose to do this with a larger audience. They already organized retreats, but wanted to make it accessible to ‘detox’ from their phones with The Offline Club.
Their second edition was held in Café Brecht on Sunday, which was completely sold out. The café was filled with people reading, knitting or drawing. There were also moments to get to know the other visitors.
It is striking that the concept’s Instagram account already has millions of views. “That’s also where our audience is,” says Ilya Kneppelhout, “We are often asked on Instagram why we are online. But we are not completely offline either. We also want to grow bigger and then Instagram is a great option. place. But I refuse to go on Tiktok.”
Visitors have to get used to being without a telephone. “I notice that I miss notifications, those beeps,” says a woman. Another says: “It takes some getting used to. I was just going to show you that I have a nice app that allows me to see my screen time, but that is not possible.”
Westerkerk
The Offline Club has two more editions in March. For example, they will be in Café Brecht on March 25 and in the New Yoga School on March 29. In May, the Westerkerk will also be filled with people who want to detox online. Phone-free afternoons are also planned in Utrecht and Nijmegen. Kneppelhout then also wants to go international: “The dream is of course to organize The Offline Club in the largest cities in the world, so that everyone can enjoy a few hours without a telephone.”