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Coffee, cake and social detox, please! (Niveau B1)

784 Views 3 Liked Posted on: June 17th 2024

Coffee, cake and social detox, please!

Niveau B1

The Offline Club organises digital detox events where people can unplug from their phones and connect with real people or simply relax. The club invites you to swap screen time for real time wherever you are. How and where?

Image de couverture : ©Sun_Shine-Shutterstock.com

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In Amsterdam, you can go to a café where you can swap your phone for board games, books and tranquillity. What about if you don’t like games or reading? Bring your knitting, sketch pad and crayons or simply sit and chat with a friend without glancing at your phone screen every two minutes!

‘Turn off, tune out and drop in’. That’s the message you’ll see at a Dutch digital detox cafe where you pay to leave your phone at the door. What do you get in return? An oasis of respite from the incessant ringing and notifications on your phone. And there’s more! You won’t have to listen to the man at the next table having an argument with his girlfriend on the phone while you’re trying to enjoy your cappuccino either.

Why the digital detox? Spending time away from your phone nurtures moments of quiet introspection. It encourages spontaneous conversations with strangers and it calms down your nervous system. Human beings aren’t meant to be stimulated 24 hours a day.

The café has board games, a piano and books you can borrow. It’s so popular that more pop-up cafés are growing across the Netherlands, and the club is getting ready for an international launch.

“People love it: they tell us this is exactly what they’ve been waiting for, they can’t believe it didn’t exist already,” says co-founder Ilya Kneppelhout. “We had a girl who struggled with stress and anxiety tell us she hadn’t felt so at peace with herself in a year and a half.”

Kneppelhout says, “We live in quite an isolated world where we’re more connected online, but in the physical world, it’s hard to meet people. This is a real experience: where else are you going to be in a cafe with 30 others, and read a book or draw? It’s quite unique.”

detox: désintox

to unplug: débrancher

to swap: échanger

board games: jeux de société

knitting: tricot

a sketch pad: un carnet de croquis

to chat: discuter

to glance: jeter un coup d’oeil

Dutch: néerlandais

respite: répit

to nurture: (ici) encourager

quiet: calme

Posted in: News

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