Dino Ambrosi, the founder of Project Reboot, spoke to Menlo’s Upper School about creating a healthy relationship with technology at an assembly on Sept. 17. Ambrosi spent the rest of his day at Menlo and talked with the Middle School as well as staff members and parents.

Ambrosi began his presentation with a graphic breakdown of the number of months an 18-year-old has left in their lives — assuming a life expectancy of 90 — factoring in sleep, work, and other necessities. Only 334 months during the rest of their life will be free time, and of those 334 months, the average 18-year-old is on pace to spend 312 of them glued to a screen. 

During the assembly Ambrosi touched on his personal experience of struggling with and overcoming a “phone addiction” during college. Ambrosi also talked about how people turn to their phone when they feel stress, anxiety or boredom. He doesn’t pin the blame on people for falling into these traps because social media apps are sucking up people’s time through addictive software. 

“We all need to realize that none of these apps are actually free,” Ambrosi said. “We just pay for them with our time.” 

To close out his presentation, Ambrosi gave students a variety of tools to apply to this issue including moving the phone charger out of your room and downloading Clearspace — an app to eliminate digital distraction.