Running clubs, book readings and salsa: the get-togethers that lure Generation Z away from their screens | Relationships

Tara Meakins didn’t know anyone when she moved to Sydney, but after connecting with a local mum interested in running on a Facebook community page, it wasn’t long before she found her regular group and the Coogee Run Club was born.

“On our first run, one more person came by on a Tuesday night,” says Meakins, 35, who co-founded the club two years ago.

“We started with two runs a week,” she says, “and over the first few months we slowly increased from one runner to ten or even twenty.”

Within a year the group reached 40 members. Then, one evening in January last year, 120 people ran, tripling the group size. Earlier this year they reached a record 255 runners.

Clubs for running, reading, hiking, crafting and volunteering seem to be springing up everywhere. Young people are being encouraged to put down their phones and meet others in person.

These groups are often free and offer new opportunities to make new friends and socialize without having to financially ruin yourself in a cost of living crisis.

“It was never just about running”

Running clubs in particular have seen a huge boom in the past year as they are a way to stay fit, meet friends and sometimes even find a potential partner.

“We like to say we’re a social club that does a bit of running on the side, because for us it’s never just been about running,” says Meakins.

The club, whose members range in age from 17 to 70, meets five times a week to run various routes around Sydney’s east. The most popular is a 5k on Tuesday night, which often attracts more than 100 participants. Runners who run 5k on Thursday morning are rewarded with a sunrise followed by a swim, while joggers on “Newbies Night” head to the local pub for a drink afterwards.

Thanks to their “rain, hail, shine or hangover policy,” no trip has ever been cancelled.

Meakins has been going to the gym regularly for 14 years, but says it can be difficult to make friends there because people are often engrossed in their phones with their heads down while working out.

But in the running club there is little time for screen time.

“When you run, you have to run,” says Meakins. “When you run, you can’t text or scroll… the blood is pumping through your body, the endorphins are filling your mind.”

Others, like 26-year-old Skye Cusack, have been looking for more relaxed ways to socialize. When Cusack, who describes herself as an introvert, moved from Tasmania to Melbourne with a friend in late 2022, they didn’t know anyone.

Then Cusack started a club on social media called the Silent Book Club, which meets once a month. People bring their own books; some sit down and read silently, others use the opportunity to discuss what they have read.

“We really wanted to make some friends and socialize, but we’re both introverts,” says Cusack.

Cusack says she and her friend were nervous when they walked into a room full of strangers at their first club night in February 2023, but everyone was warm and welcoming. She has been a regular since then and has formed close friendships with several members.

“That’s the beauty of a book club: You have a common ground and you know that you both have a common interest that you can talk about,” she says.

More than a year later, she now sees it as an important break in her busy schedule.

“I work a lot, about seven days a week, so it’s really nice to have regular time every month where I’m sure to meet new people and get in touch with the regulars who are always there,” she says.

Having grown up with social media and being forced to attend school from home during the pandemic, it’s no wonder some young people are spending less time on their devices and preferring to socialize offline in their neighborhoods.

Establish offline connection

According to a McCrindle report on the future of education in Australia, almost three in five (58%) students find dealing with loneliness and isolation extremely or very difficult.

The 2021 report, which surveyed about 1,200 Australian students aged 16 to 24, also found that 82% of them struggle with spending too much time on technology.

74 percent of young people said they wanted to quit social media, and 65 percent agreed that it had a negative impact on their mental health. However, young people were reluctant to turn away from social media because they feared they would miss out on events, trends and what their friends were doing.

According to the report, this group’s “relationships and sense of connectedness have been built more through the online medium than any generation before.” A separate McCrindle study found that only 32% of Generation Z, people born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s, turn to their local community for meaningful and regular companionship, compared to 47% of baby boomers.

But the tide may be turning, and Generation Z seems to want to change that.

A 2019-2020 study found that half of all Australians have given up on social media at some point – with Generation Z more likely to cut ties than Millennials. Sociology professor Roger Patulny says Generation Z was the first generation to “always have had internet”, while for Millennials it was more of a novelty.

“I think Generation Z is more social media savvy because they grew up with it,” he says. “And as a result, they’re more willing to turn away from certain platforms, if not social media altogether, and be more critical of it.”

Patulny says the impact of the pandemic and online learning has made Generation Z aware of the dangers of loneliness, but it would be wrong to say that using social media automatically causes it.

He says passive use of social media – where people just consume, lounge around or “doomscroll” – compared to active use – where they use it to talk to others and organize offline events – can lead to social isolation.

“The more a platform encourages excessive passive consumption, be it the consumption of ideologies, fashion or entertainment, the more savvy Generation Z will get fed up with it and jump ship,” he says.

Healing loneliness after the pandemic

That’s exactly what First Timer’s Club founder Penelope Jordan discovered.

Since founding the Melbourne-based club a few years ago and seeing it take off recently thanks to Instagram, the 29-year-old has noticed that her peers are using social media differently.

“A lot of people aren’t really using it to showcase what they’re doing in their lives, but to find ways to connect,” she says. “(It’s nice) to use it to physically enrich life rather than just using it as a foundation for social media.”

The club meets regularly to try out new activities together, be it salsa dancing, bouldering, yoga or tai chi. But it’s not so much about the activities, says Jordan, but rather about the chance to meet new people.

People have lost contact with their colleagues, college friends and school friends during the pandemic, says Jordan, and they feel this loss clearly.

“People have to actively seek it out now,” she says. “Whether it’s clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, there are so many different ones… It doesn’t seem to be so much about the activity itself, but just trying to connect with other people.”

Meakins agrees. With nearly 2,000 members and more than She says the Coogee Run Club has 10,000 followers on Instagram and fostered deep friendships and real connections.

“(Club) people spend Christmas together. We all spent New Year’s Eve together… I went away with people over Easter. It’s not just a passing acquaintance… these are real friendships, real people who last a long time.”