Why I'm Going A Year Without Screens

I've known nothing but a life with screens and the internet. As a kid, I played online games constantly. When I was 14, my dad gave me my first computer, and I became obsessed with technology and coding.

When I turned 20, I moved to Silicon Valley to chase a dream. My apartment near Ocean Beach soon became a startup office, and it was off to the races (press link).

I didn't stick with the startup long, but I kept working in tech, and over time, I started to feel like a frog who had been slowly boiled. My brain felt like it wasn't working like it should be — even though I ate well, worked out, and tried to optimize my sleep. My doctor also said I was doing everything right.

But the more time I spent on devices, the worse it got.

It got so bad, I even built a hardware device to lock up all my devices on a timed basis (demo below).

I once locked all my devices up for a week, and my brain felt like it turned back on. I slept well. I could think again.

That proved a scary realization: maybe we've all been boiled like frogs, just slowly enough to not notice. And I started to wonder...

What would a year without screens do to my brain and my body?

Finally, years later, I've positioned myself to make it happen: one year, zero screens, hundreds of biomarkers.

This isn't my first public N=1 experiment. I ran a six month microplastics reduction trial (Microplastics Trial I) and realized there is real value in public N=1 experiments after institutional researchers started reaching out to me. That was an epiphany.

So now, I'm running what might be the most comprehensive experiment yet on screenless living — and releasing open data (including two months of baseline + two months after) so real scientists can investigate further: continuous sleep data, 100+ monthly biomarkers, neuroimaging, video updates, etc. all shared on a public dashboard.

No phone.
No computer.
No TV.
No screens at all.

For a year.

One year, zero screens, hundreds of biomarkers. What will we discover?