How Touch Grass Together Saves Students Drowning In Brain Rot
The Dr. Phil Podcast
Dr. Phil McGraw
4.3 • 13.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
College students say screen addiction, not drugs or alcohol, is the biggest health crisis on campus today. On this episode of the Dr. Phil Podcast, Dr. Phil speaks with the founders of Touch Grass Together, a fast-growing, student-led movement helping young people break free from excessive screen use, burnout, and what many students now call “brain rot.”
Started by college students and spreading rapidly across campuses nationwide, Touch Grass Together promotes a simple but powerful reset: put the phone down, go outside, get sunlight, move your body, and reconnect with real people.
This is not a political movement. It’s a student-driven effort to reclaim focus, health, confidence, and real-world connection, one student at a time.
GET INVOLVED! Touch Grass Together: https://www.touchgrasstogether.com/
Follow: @touchgrasstogether on all platforms
contact@touchgrasstogether.org
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We send our children to college to prepare them for the rest of their lives. |
| 0:04.0 | But instead, way too many are feeding their minds and bodies literal garbage. |
| 0:11.0 | Listen to these numbers. More than half of college students spend five or more hours a day on screens, |
| 0:19.0 | and I'm talking outside of classwork. More than one-third spend less than |
| 0:24.6 | 45 minutes outdoors each day. Now, these are supposed to be the most valuable years of their |
| 0:32.1 | lives. You don't get these years back. So what's the point of college if you're doom scrolling your day away alone in some dorm room? |
| 0:43.3 | And maybe that's happening because they have zero energy. |
| 0:47.3 | Even second graders know this. |
| 0:50.3 | You are what you eat. |
| 0:52.3 | Yet 82% of college students say nutrition is the biggest problem on campus, |
| 0:58.9 | ranking it above alcohol and drug abuse. |
| 1:03.0 | And schools share some of the blame. |
| 1:06.4 | About half a students say dining halls serve too many ultra-processed foods. |
| 1:12.6 | Nearly 8 in 10 report those foods leave them feeling sluggish or down. |
| 1:18.6 | Add it all up, brain rot from screens, little to no exercise, a lousy diet, and on top of that, nearly 80% of students get fewer than |
| 1:29.5 | eight hours of sleep per night. |
| 1:31.7 | Now, here's the good news. |
| 1:33.2 | This is not an episode where a cranky old Dr. Phil lectures students about their terrible |
| 1:39.4 | habits, because the red flag isn't being waived by me, it isn't being waived by adults, |
| 1:45.9 | it's being waived by college students themselves who are saying, |
| 1:50.9 | enough is enough and too much is too much. |
| 1:54.4 | You've heard that phrase before. |
... |
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