Tech expert shares the one message that actually convinces teens to reconsider their screen time

In a 2023 TEDx Talk at Laguna Blanca School, Dino Ambrosi made a startling revelation that perfectly underlines the big question of the smartphone era: What is my time worth? Ambrosi is the founder of Project Reboot and an expert at guiding teens and young adults to develop more empowering relationships with technology. Assuming a life expectancy of 90 (an optimistic estimate, since U.S. life expectancy is currently 79), and after calculating the average time they spend sleeping, going to school, working, driving, cooking, eating, doing chores, and taking care of personal hygiene, today’s 18-year-olds have only 334 months of their adult lives to themselves. “How you spend this time will determine the quality of your life,” Ambrosi says. However, given the tech habits of today’s young people, most of those months will be spent staring at screens, leaving them with just 22 months to make their mark on the world. “Today, the average 18-year-old in the United States is on pace to spend 93% of their remaining free time looking at a screen,” Ambrosi says. An 18-year-old’s remaining time, in months. Photo credit: TEDx The idea that an entire generation will spend most of their free time in front of screens is chilling. However, the message has a silver lining. Sharing this information with young people can immediately impact how they spend their time. How to get teens to reduce their screen time Ambrosi says his work with Project Reboot through on-campus initiatives, school assemblies, and parent workshops has taught him that teens are more concerned about time wasted on their phones than the damage it may do to their mental health. Knowing which topic resonates can open the door to an effective dialogue about a topic that’s hard for many young people to discuss. When teens realize they are giving away their entire lives for free, they are more likely to reconsider their relationship with smartphones. “I actually don’t get through to a lot of teens, as well as when I help them realize the value of their time and then highlight the fact that that time is being stolen from them,” Ambrosi told Upworthy. A Common Sense Media study shows that, as of 2021, the average 13- to 18-year-old spent 8 hours and 39 minutes a day on entertainment screen time, not counting school or homework. “It’s important to get them to view time as their most valuable resource that they can use to invest in themselves or enjoy life and tick the boxes on their bucket list. I really want them to see that it’s something they should take control of and prioritize, because we’re all under the impression that social media is free, but it’s actually not. We just pay for it with our time.” Dino Ambrosi speaks at a school assembly. Photo credit: Dino Ambrosi (used with permission) Ambrosi believes that young people are less likely to give their time to tech companies for free when they understand the value of their time. “I find that kids really respond to that message because nobody wants to feel manipulated, right? And giving them that sense of being wronged, which I think they have been, by tech companies that are off operating on business models that are not aligned with their well-being, is important.” His approach to getting teens to rethink their smartphone use is similar to that of the Truth Initiative in that it educates young people about the nefarious tactics big tobacco companies used to lure and addict young people. In a way, big tech companies are doing the same thing by luring young people into their products, connecting them with friends and influencers, while providing a product that the U.S. Surgeon General warned in 2023 can pose a profound risk of harm to young people’s mental health. He also believes parents should be sympathetic and nonjudgmental when talking to young people about screen time because it’s a struggle that just about everyone faces and feels ashamed about. A little understanding will prevent them from shutting down the conversation altogether. How to reduce my screen time Ambrosi has some suggestions to help people reduce their screen time: The ClearSpace app ClearSpace forces you to take a breathing delay before using a distracting app. It also asks you to set a time limit and allows you to set a number of visits to the site per day. If you eclipse the number of visits, it sends a text to a friend saying you exceeded your budget. This can help people hold one another accountable for their screen time goals. Don’t sleep with your phone Ambrosi says to charge your phone far away from your bedside stand when you sleep and use an alarm clock to wake up. If you do have an alarm clock on your phone, set up an automation so that as soon as you turn off the alarm, it opens up an app like Flora or Forest and starts an hour-long timer that incentivizes you to be off your phone for the first hour of the day. “In my experience, if you can stay off screens for the last hour and the first hour of the day, the other 22 hours get a lot easier because you get the quality rest and sleep that you need to wake up fully charged, and now you’re more capable of being intentional because you are at your best,” Ambrosi told Upworthy. A teen boy looks at his phone in bed. Photo credit: Canva Keep apps in one place Ambrosi says to keep all of your social apps and logins on one device. “I try to designate a specific use for each device as much as possible,” he told Upworthy. “I try to keep all my social media time and all my entertainment on my phone as opposed to my computer because I want my computer to be a tool for work.” Kids are waking up to the problem Even though there are significant challenges ahead for young people as they try to navigate a screen-based world while keeping screens at a healthy distance, Ambrosi was optimistic about the future when he first spoke with Upworthy for this story. “I’m really optimistic because I have seen in the last year, in particular, that the receptiveness of student audiences has increased by almost an order of magnitude. Kids are waking up to the fact that this is the problem. They want to have this conversation,” he told Upworthy. “Some clubs are starting to address this problem at several schools right now; from the talks I’ve given this semester alone, kids want to be involved in this conversation. They’re creating phone-free spaces on college and high school campuses by their own accord. I just think we have a huge potential to leverage this moment to move things in the right direction.” Since this story first ran, the phone-free movement has gone mainstream: Education Week counts about 30 states with bell-to-bell school phone bans, and several more restrict phones during class. For more information on Ambrosi’s programs, visit ProjectReboot.School. visit ProjectReboot.School. This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.