Bulletin from Berlin: Is the Radical Anti-Smartphone Front about to have its moment in the sun?

Addictive: A smartphone habit is hard to break. Photo / Getty Images

The small signs went up overnight around Neukölln, a neighbourhood that’s usually known either as the coolest in Berlin or the dirtiest and most dangerous.

“Love instead of liking,” one piece of paper said. “Dance instead of tweeting,” “emotions instead of emoticons,” advised two other slogans on the small
posters taped to local lamp-posts. They had been put there by a group calling itself the Radical Anti-Smartphone Front, or RASF.

It’s hard to say if anybody took any real notice of their suggestions. People were too busy looking at their phones.

The RASF has a website where the group presents its manifesto. We’re not saying people should throw away their phones or attack an Apple store, it explains. But, “We clearly say, ‘No’, to the excessive use of smartphones, which is gradually poisoning our social lives.”

The RASF was actually founded just over 10 years ago. But like alcohol-free dance parties and no-laptop zones in Berlin’s organic-wine-serving cafes, its time may finally have come.

The 14-year-old son of good friends, a so-called “screenager” who’s only ever known life with a smartphone, recently explained how he and his friends think looking at your mobile all the time is “lame”.

“We try not to use them too much,” he said, surprising some of the adults listening, “especially when we’re all hanging out together.”

This bunch of Berlin kids, like the 20-somethings who founded the RASF, are also apparently well aware of how social media giants such as Instagram, Facebook or TikTok try to manipulate them for profit and their personal data.

Many schools in Germany already prevent the use of smartphones on their premises, but unlike Australia, Germany doesn’t yet have a social media ban for children. Ruling political parties apparently want one soon, though.

Among other European nations, France, Denmark and Spain have all proposed bans. The European Union is also discussing a continent-wide rule on the topic and will decide on it by summer.

You get the feeling there’s some sort of retro revival – 90s nostalgia, maybe? – to this burgeoning counterculture movement, too. Flip phones, MP3 players, iPods (may they rest in peace; they served us so well) and other standalone equipment that your phone replaced are apparently desirable again.

Media outlets, such as The Guardian in the UK and CNN in the US, have reported on the “dumb phone boom”, where young consumers prefer a phone that can’t do as much, and therefore can’t spy on you either.

The New York Times recently wrote about what consulting firm Gartner calls the “hype cycle”, which sees new technology go through waves, from enthusiasm to rapid adoption until it dips into something delightfully described as “the trough of disillusionment”. My friends’ son, his mates and the RASF all seem happy wallowing in there.

Having said all that, a smartphone habit is still really hard to break, even if you know it’s bad for you.

Take, for example, doom scrolling in bed. It’s almost compulsory for journalists but it also facilitates bad dreams and midnight panic attacks.

So you buy a good-looking alarm clock to replace the one on your phone, put a good book on your bedside table, and plan to leave your mobile charging in another room. Your addictive need to know everything, everywhere, at all times must go unsated.

But then the Americans go and start a war in the Middle East, a real, live nightmare. You’ll use your nice alarm clock only twice. The book remains unopened. And you start to wonder if kids on phones are the problem.

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