One young man confided to the group that not having his phone was proving to be the beginning of an end to a struggle with pornography. Tim Delaney, executive director of alumni and constituent relations at FUS, reports that the initial meeting included comical woes such as having to ask a stranger for directions, as well as serious triumphs. Recognizing the importance of influencing one another, students also meet monthly in a group called Humans Engaging Reality to share their experiences and struggles as well as to inspire one another in the formation of new habits and the setting aside of old ones. The result of their efforts and fundraising is the ' Unplugged Scholarship,' a pilot program that awards financial help to students who choose to forgo smart phones for the duration of their college life. They reached out to fellow alumni and to FUS president Fr. Inspired in part by this experience, and with their eldest child studying at their alma mater, Franciscan University of Steubenville (FUS), the Schneirs considered what they could do to encourage a similar movement. Wyoming Catholic, the local liberal arts college that established a phone-free culture, is part of a growing movement to reject smart phones and their attending addictions in favor of a more human way of life-even if it feels as wildly old fashioned as the set of Friends. 'No one is using a cell phone!'įar less than the décor or design, the difference was that the patrons were absorbed with one another rather than siloed in their devices. He whispered to his wife that somehow it reminded him of a coffee shop in the 1990s. A small coffee shop filled with young adults in rural Wyoming felt palpably different for reasons Justin Schneir, a father and entrepreneur, could not immediately identify.

The whispered world fullscreen