144 Daily Phone Checks Are Redefining Luxury

While previous generations seeked ostentatious spa resorts and flashy fitness centers, a new movement is quietly emerging across Europe. Young professionals are putting down their smartphones, walking away from social media, and rediscovering the freedom to be fully present. To add some colour, a fringe movement in Amsterdam is now taking root across Europe’s cultural capitals. The “Offline Club” concept (where participants voluntarily surrender their phones for hours at a time) has drawn over 1,000 people in London alone.

This is of course a telling sign that confirms what we all know and struggle with:  today’s professionals aren’t just running between offices, gyms, and social spaces. They’re simultaneously fractured across digital platforms, checking their phones an average of 144 times a day (!!!) while struggling to maintain authentic relationships and meaningful work.

This creates double fragmentation, a reality in which both our physical spaces and our digital spaces are competing for our attention, leaving us in the too familiar “present nowhere despite being connected everywhere” paradigm.

The numbers, as usual, tell a very clear story:

• 70% of young Europeans aged 16–21 say they feel worse after spending time on social media

• 46% say they wish they had grown up without the internet altogether

Being in that magical age group who remembers life before mIRC, Altavista and Myspace (had to plug that in), pushes me to conclude something fundamental has been lost along the way. Research confirms what many already feel, for example that reducing smartphone use for just three weeks can lower depressive symptoms by 27%.

Governments are also taking notice. Norway is raising the social media age limit to 15, Denmark has banned smartphones from most schools, and Australia has implemented a complete ban on social media for under-16s.

These aren’t isolated policy moves. They’re responses to a generation actively seeking refuge from digital overwhelm. There's hope for a more balanced status quo, I believe, but a lot to be done.

I believe this shift isn’t just ideological. It’s spatial. The next frontier of luxury isn’t about doing more, but about designing better. And that means creating physical environments that solve for the fragmentation crisis. We must create environments that support both productivity and presence, where technology enhances rather than dominates, and where community emerges naturally, not through forced networking.

We’re already seeing it happen with padel clubs with coworking lounges, gyms that double as social clubs, wellness studios flowing seamlessly into cafés, libraries, or galleries. These hybrid models aren’t marketing gimmicks. They’re architectural answers to a psychological need. So find your niche, take your pick, enjoy.

Enough of switching modes, commuting between disconnected parts of our lives. We want coherence, spaces where our rhythms are respected and our attention is protected. Where we can train, work, and connect without fragmentation.

The new luxury isn’t separation. It’s seamlessness.