Phone-Free Hangouts Are Popping Off in Amsterdam
A new startup is hosting popular “digital detox hangouts.”
If you ask the average person if they spend too much time on their phone, they’ll likely chuckle and say, “Probably,” lightly brushing off what we’ve all come to accept as an unhappy societal norm.
To say that smartphones aren’t great for our health is axiomatic, but their impact on our well-being extends far beyond simply wreaking havoc on our attention spans. Research increasingly shows they likely play a significant role in the rapid global deterioration of our ability to relate to others and see ourselves as part of a community—a trend that’s especially prevalent in younger generations. But what if we stopped relativizing these effects as the necessary evils of modernity and actively tried to develop a healthier relationship with our devices?
It would probably look a lot like what’s happening with The Offline Club, a Netherlands-based startup that regularly hosts “digital detox hangouts” at cafes and restaurants. The idea is simple: no phones or laptops, just coffee, conversation, and community. The club hosted its first event in February in Amsterdam and has since exploded in popularity, expanding its presence to several other Dutch cities and accumulating more than 260,000 followers on Instagram in just a few months. These gatherings, usually attended by locals with a sprinkling of curious tourists, have quickly become a staple for those looking to disconnect in the city.
The club’s mission—to provide people with a tech-free respite to connect with others and mindfully immerse themselves in the moment—emerged from its founders’ desire to do the same in their personal lives.
Frustrated by digital tech’s impact on his focus and time, 27-year-old Ilya Kneppelhout founded The Offline Club alongside Jordy van Bennekom and Valentijn Klok this past January. But the startup’s origins stretch back to the summer of 2022, when Kneppelhout, inspired by van Bennekom’s decision to do the same, spent a few days away from his phone to reflect on his priorities during a particularly hectic time in life.
“I wasn't taking enough time to slow down,” Kneppelhout recalls of that busy period. “I was working on my master's thesis, doing an internship, and starting my first business all at the same time. When I had this digital detox, I thought, ‘I think I've got it.’ I wanted to inspire more people to go offline and to have a better balance in their lives because it did a lot for me.”
The experience led Kneppelhout and van Bennekom to found Het Leesweekend (Dutch for “reading weekends”), the precursor to The Offline Club, later that year. The startup organized tech-free weekend getaways in nature for people looking to unplug and recharge. While it was a success, the two wanted to find a more accessible way to help people build digital detoxing habits into their daily lives. So they rebranded Het Leesweekend to The Offline Getaway and launched The Offline Club as a new venture.
Dozens of events and a few hundred thousand social media followers later, Kneppelhout says he and the team have been overwhelmed by the support and enthusiasm they’ve received in the last few months from people who believe in their mission. The irony of the club’s popularity online is not lost on its founders, though, who have thought carefully about how and why they want to make their mark in online spaces.
“It’s definitely a conversation we've had among ourselves,” Kneppelhout notes. “To what extent do we want to play the whole short attention span game? The conclusion was that we will be on Instagram, because that's where we reach the people who most need it. People also understand that we are not completely offline. That's not what we promote. We want to inspire people to have a healthier balance and show them that it’s important to slow down, even if you’re not spiritual or into meditation or yoga.”
If you want to join one of The Offline Club’s hangouts, you’ll first have to secure a ticket for €7.50 (roughly $8). Events have begun selling out weeks in advance, so travelers looking to make one of these hangouts part of their trip should ensure not to leave things until the last minute.
Once you arrive, you’ll redeem your ticket and check your phone into a “phone hotel” by the entrance. Amsterdam’s vintage-style Cafe Brecht, where the club hosted its first event, is a recurring venue for the startup’s hangouts. Regardless of the particular location, however, the first thing you’re likely to notice is the distinctively chill vibe of the space. The downtempo music, soft lighting, and socially encouraging seating arrangements that characterize these hangouts are no accident, and they are just one of the things that have turned Amsterdam locals, like 25-year-old project manager and Turkish expat Ömer Ülger, into regulars.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Ülger says of his first time attending a hangout in February. “But when you walk in, everything looks very refined. The best thing is the fact that it's all offline. Normally, when you go to a cafe, you might think, ‘What if I started talking with someone?’ Then you look around, but everybody's in their headphones. No one is approachable. The fact that I could be offline and talk to people was great.”
Unlike The Offline Getaway retreat weekends, The Offline Club’s hangouts feature a set program for guests to follow. The first half hour is reserved for people arriving and getting comfortable, after which participants typically have 45 minutes to themselves to read, work on puzzles, draw, or do anything else they like (the club provides books and plenty of other solo-activity materials in case you turn up empty handed). Next, there’s a half hour to chat with others, followed by more time to yourself before things wrap up and the hangout ends.
While the programming might seem a bit rigid, the club’s earlier events suffered due to a lack of it, with some feeling awkward that they were having a conversation next to others who were reading, for example. As such, the founders quickly discovered that providing some structure to the hangouts was a key to their success. And in a room full of people without phones, Kneppelhout says, individuals appreciate a little bit of guidance to take the pressure off.
For such a young organization, the club seems to be having a noticeable effect on some of its participants. Ülger, for example, says he has turned off many of the pop-up notifications on his phone and even occasionally leaves it at home when he goes out, two things he attributes directly to his experience with The Offline Club. Likewise, Kneppelhout says that helping build and run the startup reinforces a certain level of consistency with his own tech-related behaviors.
“When I go to play tennis or get groceries, I leave my phone at home,” he says. “Every small habit change is a win, and I do think it's directly related to me being one of the founders of the club. It's also just a subject I find super fascinating and important and that personal experience will help us with our mission.”
The startup is now leveraging the momentum it’s built up to reach more people. It hosted a 250-person hangout in May at Westerkerk, a nearly 400-year-old church in Amsterdam, and after receiving countless requests from people all over the world to bring The Offline Club to their city, Kneppelhout and company have their eyes set on international expansion. Next month, they’ll host their first digital detox hangout outside the Netherlands in Aarhus, Denmark. The Offline Getaway will also host its inaugural overseas weekend retreat in mid-July in Saint-Jean-de-Duras in the south of France.
To Kneppelhout, the startup’s rapid growth signifies the yearning people have to escape the gravitational pull of ever-demanding digital devices and reclaim a sense of presence and intimacy that those devices have contributed to taking away.
“People are screaming for more connection and less screen time,” he says. “It says something about the state of the world that we're in now.”