About the Program
We are on a mission to help the next generation build empowering relationships with technology
Mass adoption of smartphones and social media has happened too quickly for education and regulation to keep up. As a result, teens have been thrown into the deep end and asked to navigate the online world with little to no guidance.
Unsurprisingly, youth (and adults) are struggling to maintain balance. Project Reboot seeks to help them reset their tech habits, reclaim their time, and regain their focus.
Over 4,000 students reached
OUR APPROACH
The answer to tech addiction is intention, not abstinence
Technology is neither inherently good nor bad. While it has the power to addict, distract, and depress, it also has the potential to inform, inspire, and empower. As such, Project Reboot does not seek to get tech-addicted teens off their screens entirely. Instead, it helps students set and adhere to informed intentions for their tech use.
Project Reboot does this by focusing on the three keys to healthy tech use:
Key #1: Mindset
The lens through which students view technology
The program is centered around two ideas:
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You pay for social media with your time - Social media platforms are free because they monetize you. In order to get a good deal out of them you need to figure out what value they add to your life and how much of your time that is worth.
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Your content diet is as important as your nutritional diet - The information you consume on a daily basis influences your attention span, worldview, and skillset. The internet is the greatest learning resource ever created. Students that learn to leverage it will find themselves ahead of the pack.
Research Advisory Board
The Project Reboot program has been vetted and refined by the following experts:
Dr. Sahar Yousef & Professor Lucas Miller
Cognitive Neuroscientists at UC Berkeley
Sahar and Lucas are cognitive neuroscientists and MBA faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. At Berkeley, they run the Becoming Superhuman Lab and teach one of the most popular MBA classes, called "Becoming Superhuman: The Science of Productivity and Performance", which teaches busy professionals how to get their most important work done, in less time, with less stress. Since COVID began, they’ve collectively given over 500 talks and keynotes to knowledge workers in 50+ countries, have advised executive teams at Google, Coinbase, and Visa, and have been invited to speak for the US Congress and Saudi Arabian governments.
Pamela Rutledge, PhD, MBA
Media Psychologist
Dr. Pamela Rutledge combines psychological science with 20+ years as a media producer. She is the Director of the Media Psychology Research Center, an independent research group, and faculty of media psychology at Fielding Graduate University. Professionally and academically, Dr. Rutledge uses psychology to understand why adults and children use media and how that impacts their connections with others, view of the world and self-image. Dr. Rutledge is a co-host tackling tech topics and kids for the Cyberwise Monthly Chats. She is the author of Exploring Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Well-Being and a contributor to Psychology Today, Dr. Rutledge is also a frequent expert source on media use and popular culture for outlets such as The NY Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and ABC News. She holds a PhD and an MBA.
Diana Graber
Author of "Raising Humans in a Digital World" and Founder of Cyber Civics
Diana Graber, M.A., is the author of “Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology” (HarperCollins Leadership, ’19) and founder of Cyberwise & Cyber Civics, two organizations devoted to digital literacy. She developed and still teaches Cyber Civics, the popular middle school digital literacy program currently being taught in schools in 48 US states and internationally. The program has been recognized as an "Innovation in Education" finalist by Project Tomorrow and the O.C. Tech Alliance. Graber has also taught Media Psychology at the graduate level and is the recipient of the "2017 Media Literacy Teacher" Award from NAMLE. She has appeared on and has been interviewed by the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and more. She presents widely about kids and tech. She has a B.A. in Communication Studies from UCLA and an M.A. in Media Psychology and Social Change from Fielding Graduate University.
History
UC Berkeley course begins
Project Reboot was piloted as a semester-length course titled "INFO 98: Becoming Tech Intentional". The course was taught three times to a total of 110 students.
May 2022
First high school program
North Tahoe High School becomes the first school to run the Project Reboot Screen Time Initiative
January 2023
March 2023
August 2021
Project Reboot Launches
High school and college students begin receive a condensed version of the UC Berkeley course via 1:1 in-person and virtual consulting
September 2022
Online course begins
The first iteration of the Project Reboot Online Course is run with the help of UC Berkeley professors Dr. Sahar Yousef and Lucas Miller
February 2023
First International Engagements
Dino speaks to Wilson Academy and Anmol Jyoti School in Kathmandu, Nepal
OUR FOUNDER
Hi, I'm Dino Ambrosi
I'm a former tech-addicted teen on a mission to help others build healthy relationships with their devices.
The internet has given us a powerful set of tools, but most people receive no education on how to engage with them in an intentional, constructive manner. As one of the first people to get on social media in middle school, I received no guidance for my online behavior. As a result, I developed an addiction that negatively impacted my college experience.
It took me years of trial and error to build healthy digital habits, but today my devices help me live a better life. I want to give incoming college students the resources, best practices, and the space to discuss digital wellness that I never had in order to help them succeed in college and beyond.
