Keegan Lee Wrote the Book “60 Days of Disconnect” [Video]

Keegan Lee was in 10th grade when she realized she was addicted to social media, spending about six hours a day checking her phone — even while running. “It was all consuming,” says the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill sophomore. “I was on Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and I couldn’t miss a notification, I had trouble separating myself from my phone.”

She then did the unthinkable: She put down her phone. “I quit for a week and experienced a lot of beautiful things,” says Lee, 19, of Burlington, N.C. and one of PEOPLE’s Girls Changing the World in 2024. “I developed this higher tolerance for boredom. I could just sit and be still once I resisted the urge to go online.” 

Lee turned to the slower-paced world of reading books, handwriting letters and connecting with people in real life, discovering, she says, that “it’s a more long lasting feeling of fulfillment and abundance than what any TikTok …