24YearOld Wanted to Stop Being a 'Scroll Zombie,' So She Launched an 'Appstinence' Movement to Help People 'Reclaim' Their Lives Susan YoungSat, March 21, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC 0 Gabriela Nguyen with with the phones she used when starting AppstinenceCredit: Jill Anderson Harvard grad and child of Silicon Valley Gabriela Nguyen has started a movement and a platform to quit social media Her San Jose, Calif.
24-Year-Old Wanted to Stop Being a 'Scroll Zombie,' So She Launched an 'Appstinence' Movement to Help People 'Reclaim' Their Lives
Susan YoungSat, March 21, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC
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Gabriela Nguyen with with the phones she used when starting AppstinenceCredit: Jill Anderson -
Harvard grad and child of Silicon Valley Gabriela Nguyen has started a movement and a platform to quit social media
Her San Jose, Calif., high school identifies tech as "a pathway to success," but she found it to be a destructive addiction
The organization she founded, Appstinence, offers support from Gen Z educators who present people with alternative options to reclaim their lives from tech
Gabriela Nguyen and her fellow members of Gen Z have never lived in a world without social media, so they may be a little testy when called "scroll zombies" or are told by their parents to get their faces out of their screens.
"You have built your social capital, the very basic tenants of your life, operated through these platforms, so to have someone else come in who didn't grow up like this, it's a sticky situation," Nguyen, 24, tells PEOPLE. "That's why I feel like the messenger counts."
Nguyen is one of the messengers. She grew up in Silicon Valley and attended Presentation High School in San Jose, a school that identifies tech as "a pathway to success." Instead, she found many aspects of it to be destructive.
In the past few years, the impact on the mental health of a generation hooked on social media engagement is only just being acknowledged. Best-selling books like Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation, published in 2024, argued the rise of smartphone use correlates with an increase in mental illness diagnoses.
A landmark trail recently drew to a close in California as the nation's first legal test of social media addiction. In New Mexico, the state began a trial in February claiming Meta implemented design features and algorithms that created a danger for users.
And even Apple CEO Tim Cook is telling people to get off their smartphones and get out "into nature."
A recent study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry acknowledged that while smartphones are "an integral part of life" for many people, they also have negative effects when used too often.
In December 2025, Nguyen traveled to Australia to celebrate the world's first social media ban for users under 16. She was excited to see an actual change taking place.
"Because of these technologies, a lot of people in our generation are lacking that optimism, that level of change is possible, especially if you're consuming content all day that's telling you the world is up in flames," Nguyen says.
Gabriela Nguyen speaks at 'The New York Times' Well Festival on May 7, 2025 in Brooklyn, N.Y.Credit: David Delgado
Early on, Nguyen started feeling uneasy about tradeoffs when so much of her time was spent online.
"It's a very hard truth that technologies we have normalized in society are addictive, and they take away time from our friends and family," Nguyen says. "We've become so reliant on technologies that were made to be addictive."
Appstinence was launched by Nguyen as a student organization at Harvard in 2024. After receiving her Master's from Harvard Graduate School of Education last May, Nguyen expanded Appstinence to counteract nascent technology quickly changing an entire generation.
Her group offers support through free online educational resources, including bi-monthly meetings and weekly "office hours" during which team members, described as experienced Gen Z educators, present alternative phone options and methods to "reclaim your life from tech," the group's website says.
Nguyen applauds all the efforts to slow the scroll, especially for younger users, but says getting a generation off social media means bringing the human aspect back to the conversation.
"We get caught up in research and all the things necessary to write legislation, but when you are talking to someone who is 16 or 18 and they just want to have friends, they're not thinking about those things," Nguyen says. "No matter how much you batter into them, 'This is bad for you,' that's not how you get people in my generation off these platforms."
Instead, Nguyen tries to provide a point of reference of how good their life is when they don't live on such platforms. She says no matter how much talk there is about the harms of social media, from sexual predation to exploitation, the key is not to focus on what you don't like about the platforms, but rather what you do like about them.
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"If you are always getting something from it, the platform will always price out," Nguyen says. "And no amount of scam advertising or explicit material or political bludgeoning will ever be too much."
The key, she says, it to find the elements you like on the platform somewhere else. She once thought scrolling was resting, but realized that doing something active, like running, can also be restful.
Nguyen also says it's addictive to get immediate feedback on platforms. It retrains your brain to want that instant response, which might not be a constructive response. Instead, she says, when you have that interaction in person, it's most likely with people who know and care about you.
"You have to remove the power," she says. "If you don't, the platforms will always hold something over you."
She clarifies that Appstinence is specifically for technology designed to be addictive and not restricted to social media, but also gambling apps and AI companion services.
"It's a slew of technologies designed for you not to be able to control yourself," Nguyen says. "It's not saying don't have a phone or email account. You can use Zoom because, to my knowledge, no one gets addicted to Zoom."
Nguyen calls it the 5D method: decrease use, deactivate social media accounts one-by-one and delete your apps. Step 4 is to downgrade your device from a smartphone. The final step is to depart from the digital and social media world.
Jack Cantorna with his flip phoneCredit: Courtesy of Jack Cantorna
Nguyen says Appstinence is set to begin its first post-Harvard club this spring at the University of Iowa. Jack Cantorna, 22, a student at the University of Iowa, tells PEOPLE he realized that every time he had social media on his phone, he wasn't as productive as he had hoped.
"It's hard to write an essay, but it's really easy to grab my phone and get an instant hit of pleasure," says Cantorna, who first contacted Appstinence for help with reducing his time on social media and is now helping start the new club in Iowa.
He says he started on the 5D method, and when he took the final step, he finally achieved "freedom from the beast."
He says being addicted to social media isn't about a lack of self-control, it's all about tuning into something that's designed to keep you staring at a screen.
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"The only thing you can do is disconnect," says Cantorna, who now uses a flip phone rather than a smartphone. "The cost of that isn't as bad as you think. Social media platforms used to facilitate social interactions, to see your friends and family, but now it's just crazy headlines and content creators."
Appstinence, Nguyen says, helps people build a better life. One of her clients wanted to spend more time with his family and less time interacting with social media.
"He realized that family was the most important thing to him and he wanted to spend time with them," Nguyen says. "He put the technology away and Appstinence gave him a frame on how to do that."
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: March 21, 2026 at 10:45AM on Source: PRIME TIME
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