Our mission

Attention Initiative exists to reduce the compulsive use of addictive digital technology, especially among young people.

Young people are growing up inside a technological environment engineered to capture and hold their attention. Families, schools, and young people themselves are being asked to manage a problem they did not create and cannot solve alone.

Half of American teenagers spend at least four hours a day on screens outside of schoolwork, and nearly half say they are online almost constantly, roughly twice the share reported a decade ago.

We gave a generation some of the most persuasive technology ever created without building the safeguards, public understanding, or institutions needed to help them navigate it. Social media has already reshaped childhood and adolescence. Generative AI is raising the stakes for attention, learning, judgment, and human agency.

We are building a public-health response that is neither anti-technology nor rooted in moral panic. We want young people to understand how these products affect them, regain control of their attention, and use technology on their own terms.