Lessons from the Screening of Disconnected: Life in a Digital Reality

On the Feb. 13, 2026 Wellness Day, the WPI community welcomed student filmmaker and digital wellness advocate Ben Forman to campus for an exclusive screening of his documentary, Disconnected: Life in a Digital Reality. The event was organized by the Student Mental Health Committee, Assistant Professor Richard Lopez from the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies, and Paula Fitzpatrick and Gina Heinsohn from the Center for Wellbeing. 

WPI President Grace Wang opened the event with remarks about the value of interpersonal connection and the importance of digital wellness, especially within the WPI community. Next, Ben Forman, a current undergraduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder, introduced the film as an exploration of how growing up in a smartphone- and social media-driven world shapes mental health, relationships, and identity. The documentary explores these issues through conversations with college students, mental health professionals, and Forman himself. As part of the film, Forman conducts a personal experiment: after abstaining from social media for five years, he spends multiple hours a day on social media apps for one month to examine their impact.

During a Q&A that followed the screening, students, faculty, and staff engaged with Forman about his experiences creating the film, the various impacts of his personal social media experiment, and the increasing role of artificial intelligence in discussions around social media and youth mental health. 

At the end of the event, Fitzpatrick invited the audience to take part in a one-week social media detox challenge, encouraging participants to reduce their daily social media use and intentionally replace that time with other meaningful activities. One student who participated in such a challenge said, “I noticed that I was less down on myself than I typically am during the week and was able to prioritize the things that I enjoy (spending time with friends, exercising, drawing).” Another student remarked, “I was more anxious about what to do with my time. It has been a very long time since I've spent time away from my phone like this. But, as time went on, it was easier to stay away from my phone and be at peace without it. It was nice to connect with the world without looking at it through a screen.”

The screening of Disconnected, the thoughtful discussions it prompted, and the promise of regular social media detoxes are just the start of a much longer conversation on the WPI campus. Indeed, it is timely for our community to consider how we can integrate digital wellness initiatives into academics, extracurriculars, and student life to strengthen mental health and wellbeing in the age of social media, AI, and other emerging technologies.