How phone-free events and digital detox clubs are helping people switch off in the UK

There’s a ritual at the start of every event hosted by the Offline Project. Run by Pelé Zachariah, the activities vary — it could be a group walk, a collage-making class or a supper club — but each one begins the same way, with an invitation to hand over your phone. Devices go in a lockbox. Once they’re all in, Zachariah closes the door and turns the key.

He has been running these screen-free events in London since August 2025. First-timers can be apprehensive about being separated from their phone. Zachariah says people often feel uncomfortable at first, but later say they did not realise how much they needed the break.

He understands why people might find it difficult at first. He says the experience feels unnatural, because the phone is locked away and inaccessible. But after the events, people often say they would like their own phone lockbox or that they will try not to look at their device until they get home.

This is true for Jarred Laros, 31, who lives in Essex and has been a regular at the Offline Project since it launched. One of the first events he attended was a paint and sip evening, where an artist taught everyone how to paint a landscape scene with mountains, a river and a sunset. People sat around a table together, working on their canvases while having drinks and snacks and getting to know each other.

Laros runs his own business and spends a lot of time on his devices. He says he is always glued to a screen and often finds himself scrolling on Instagram without intending to. His average daily screen time is seven and a half hours, and he says his relationship with his phone is not what he wants it to be.

The Offline Project is part of a new wave of digital detox communities that host events to give people time away from screens. The article says adults in the UK now spend an average of four and a half hours online a day, mostly on their phones, according to Ofcom’s 2025 Online Nation report.

In 2025, the annual TouchPoints survey by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising found that British adults were spending more time on their phones than watching TV for the first time. The government has also announced that in spring 2027 it will bring in a social media ban for under-16s, including platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

People are also pushing back against phones at live events. Some musicians have introduced no-phones policies at gigs, including Bob Dylan’s 2025 UK and Ireland tour, Fred Again’s gigs at Alexandra Palace in February, and Harry Styles’s one-off gig in Manchester in March this year. Comedy events have also adopted similar rules, including Sarah Silverman’s London Palladium gig and Russell Howard’s Don’t Tell the Algorithm tour.

According to Eventbrite, attendance at phone-free events increased by 121% globally from 2024 to 2025. At Annie Mac’s club night Before Midnight, stickers are placed on phone cameras so people cannot take photos or videos. She says phones limit the sense of freedom that nightclubs are meant to create.

Some people are going further and giving up smartphones altogether. Cody Ramone, 31, from Derby, switched back to a dumb phone in 2024 after growing tired of notifications and being constantly online. He says the change has given him more time for boredom, creativity, reading and hobbies such as crochet.

Anna Lembke, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and author of Dopamine Nation, says digital media activates the same reward pathway as drugs and alcohol by releasing dopamine. She says moving images encourage people to keep watching and that the more time people spend on phones, the more desensitised they become and the less they enjoy simpler pleasures.

Lembke says healthier technology use should include periods when people are not using devices and are fully present with others. She says this means creating collective spaces where people come together device-free.

The article then lists several kinds of places in the UK where people can escape their phones.

Digital detox clubs

The Offline Club was set up in Amsterdam in 2024 by friends Jordy van Bennekom, Valentijn Klok and Ilya Kneppelhout. It has 14 chapters in cities across 10 countries, including London and Bristol in the UK. Events start with everyone putting their devices in the phone hotel, a lockable metal box with slots. For the first hour, there is music but no talking, and for the second hour people are encouraged to chat.

Demand for these events is growing. In London there is Switch Off, which offers quiet, phone-free sessions for women to journal, collage or read a book. The Offline Project hosts screen-free walks, talks and workshops. Logging Off Club is a UK initiative with local groups in London, Bristol, Brighton, Southampton, Cambridge and the New Forest, and it has expanded to Sydney, Mexico City and Winnipeg.

In Bath, Nicola MacDonald and Laura Hughes started the Digital Detox Club in early 2025. They host events every two months at The Den cafe, where phones go into a tech motel on arrival and attendees can join optional board games, journalling and crafts. MacDonald says the diversity of attendees shows this is not a niche concern and reflects broader cultural fatigue with constant connectivity.

Craft sessions

Native Hands offers basketry, pottery and bushcraft sessions in an ancient woodland in Sussex. At Curious House in East Sussex, classes range from basket weaving to portrait painting. All sessions start with a mindful breathing exercise to help people switch off.

In November last year, Dan Palmer launched Airplane Mode, a monthly phone-free event at his organic restaurant and natural wine bar, Eat Your Greens, in Leeds. The free events include workshops hosted by local creatives, with activities such as painting, collage and origami.

Rather than locking phones away in a safe, the event uses a swear jar system. Palmer says he fines anyone caught on their phone 50p and gives the money to Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. He says he has issued three fines so far, including one for himself.

Nadia Butt from Inner Canvas hosts art sessions for women at her home in Reading without screens. She says the screen-free element is central to the sessions and that they treat it like a ritual. At the start of each session, phones are silenced and placed in a box she calls the phone spa.

Spas and saunas

The Bath Thermae Spa has a strict no-phones policy and requires guests to put devices in a lockable pouch kept in their locker. At Careys Manor in the New Forest, there is a digital detox spa break that includes treatments, a complimentary journal and a phone amnesty box in the room.

Phones have been banned at the Bothy at Heckfield Place since it launched in 2023. Reka Seres-Erdei says phones felt out of alignment in a space dedicated to restoration and slowing down.

Sauna culture is also growing, and many people see it as a break from technology. Ryan Haynes, 34, is a regular at Community Sauna Baths, which has locations in Camberwell, Hackney Wick, Stratford, Walthamstow and Peckham. Phones are not allowed in the sauna, and the venue is considering a wider ban.

Haynes says his Wednesday morning sauna session is non-negotiable and that some of his best ideas in the past two years have come while sitting in a sauna.

Book clubs

Kelly Wickson, an independent bookshop owner and sauna enthusiast, launched a book club in a sauna last year. She owns Chapter 34 in Shoreham-by-Sea and hosts the sauna book club once a month at the Nomadic Sauna on Kingston Beach. She says the sauna naturally creates a phone-free space because phones would be ruined by the heat and moisture.

The books are 250 pages or less, and the club does not require monthly attendance. Phones are left in waterproof tubs outside the sauna, and participants move in and out during the hour, with some taking quick dips in the sea.

Wickson says the sessions are popular and sell out. The article also points to Silent Book Club, a global network with about 2,000 chapters in more than 60 countries and almost 150 chapters in the UK and Ireland.

Pubs and bars

Camille Jetzer and James Nasmyth opened the Roses of Elagabalus in Dalston, east London, last year and wanted to minimise phone use. They call it a clubhouse with a bar, restaurant, dancing and cabaret, and Jetzer says the aim is to help visitors leave the outside world behind and enter a fantasy world.

When guests arrive, a host explains that there is no photography and places a sticker over the phone camera. Jetzer says it is a you were there or you missed it situation and that regular customers now remind newcomers about the rule.

Elsewhere in London, Esmeralda’s Mayfair and the Spy Bar at Raffles London at the OWO also use camera stickers. Samuel Smith’s pubs introduced a rule in 2019 that customers could not use phones or laptops in their more than 200 pubs across the country. At the Barrel at Bude in Cornwall, breaking the no-phones rule means donating £1 to local charities. The Butchers Arms in Herne Bay has been phone-free since 2005, with owner Martyn Hillier saying social pressure is enough to enforce the rule.

In Woking, Kim and Mike Jarred run Beyond the Screen, a monthly phone-free social at the Olive Tree pub. They started it in March 2025 after discussing how to model good phone habits for their teenage sons. They provide activities like puzzles and conversation starters, but most people just sit and chat.