St. Mark’s School recently welcomed Dino Ambrosi to campus as the first speaker in this year’s Gray Colloquium series entitled “AI and Its Implications: Shaping Our Future.” As a digital wellness speaker and the founder of Project Reboot, Ambrosi is on a mission to help students create healthier relationships with screens and build better tech habits.
“If you are a social media user, AI has been impacting you for years,” Ambrosi told St. Markers in the Putnam Family Arts Center’s Class of ’45 Hall. He then explained to students that while the decision to make social media free might seem noble, it is in fact, problematic. “If social media is free, the users are not the customers; they are the product that is sold to advertisers.”
Ambrosi shared how short-form algorithmically ranked videos have taken over social media platforms because they keep users engaged. “Behind that screen, that algorithm is being ranked by supercomputers...in order to figure out exactly what content is going to keep you scrolling," he said. "The algorithms are not optimizing with your best interest in mind...they are literally only looking for what grabs your attention.”
Ambrosi then asked St. Markers, “What deserves the largest chunk of [your] free time?” As students reflected, he offered this staggering statistic: “Today, in the United States, the average 18-year-old is on pace to spend over 90 percent of their remaining free time looking at a screen unproductively.”
As a new student at UC Berkeley in 2017, Ambrosi said he used his phone as a “digital pacifier" to "numb uncomfortable emotions.” The phone became an escape from discomfort—a coping mechanism—not just for Ambrosi but for other students at Berkeley who admitted to absentmindedly scrolling and using their phones as a form of procrastination. In an effort to combat these bad habits, Ambrosi created a course at his alma mater which focused on becoming more “tech-intentional.”
“Technology’s ability to influence us is growing exponentially,” cautioned Ambrosi, noting that how we think, what we feel, and what we believe about the world and ourselves can be shaped by social media. For this reason, he said, “A content diet is just as important as a nutritional diet.”
A “content diet” consists of content that is either informative or entertaining, long-form or short-form. Long-form content actually helps attention span, Ambrosi believes, while short-form content leads to distractibility. His advice: “Treat entertainment as dessert; go for information.”
“As a consumer, ask yourself, what price am I really paying for this content? You pay for social media with your time,” Ambrosi said. “That free time is the most valuable resource you have.”
Inspired by Ambrosi’s message, the Wellness and Counseling Departments at St. Mark’s School recently piloted “Cell Phone-Free Wednesdays”—when students, faculty, and staff are invited to voluntarily relinquish their phones for the entire School day. On the first Wednesday, 110 students participated. Way to go, Lions!
Learn more about Gray Colloquium at St. Mark’s here.
Photo by Ella Carr '24