Maya Chen is a 20-year-old junior studying computer science at University of California, Berkeley. Bright, ambitious, and tech-savvy, Maya arrived at Cal with a 4.0 high school GPA and dreams of working at a top tech company. But by the end of her sophomore year, those dreams felt increasingly out of reach.
Michael Patterson (45) and Lisa Patterson (43) have been married for 18 years and have three children (ages 16, 14, and 10). Michael is an insurance agent, and Lisa is a high school English teacher. On the surface, they looked like the perfect suburban family in Portland, Oregon. Behind closed doors, their marriage was crumbling—and both agreed that phones were the primary culprit.
Rachel Kim is a 28-year-old digital marketing manager at a boutique agency in Brooklyn, New York. Ironically, her job involved creating Instagram campaigns for clients—making the platform both her career and her obsession. By early 2024, what started as "staying current on trends" had become a source of crippling anxiety and depression.
David Thompson is a 35-year-old software engineer who has worked remotely for a SaaS company since 2020. When the pandemic forced his Seattle-based company to go fully remote, David thought he'd won the lottery: no commute, flexible hours, work from anywhere. By 2024, that dream had become a nightmare of constant connectivity.
James Rivera is a 42-year-old senior finance executive at a mid-sized tech company in Austin, Texas. As VP of Financial Planning, his days are packed with high-stakes meetings, complex financial models, and tight deadlines. For years, he prided himself on being "always available"—responding to emails at midnight, checking Slack before dawn, and keeping his phone within arm's reach 24/7.
Sarah Martinez is a 38-year-old marketing director from Portland, Oregon, and mother of two children (ages 10 and 13). Like many working parents, she found herself caught in a vicious cycle: using her phone to decompress after long workdays, while watching her kids mirror the same behavior. What started as "just checking emails" had evolved into hours of mindless scrolling that left everyone feeling disconnected.
