Maddie Freeman's Digital Detox
After Maddie Freeman (Bus’24) was faced with the grief of losing 10 friends to suicide in high school, she realized a mental health crisis was unfolding among her peers — other members of Gen Z. As she grappled with these losses, Freeman also grew determined to support her community and help provide students with much-needed mental health resources.
“I felt that if we had been supported more, then maybe people wouldn’t have taken their lives,” she said.
Through her research on the topic, Freeman began to grasp the sweeping influence social media holds over individuals’ abilities to cope with common mental health stressors.
“Anxiety, depression, loneliness, body dysmorphia — all of these things existed before social media, but social media can create these things and also amplify them,” she said. “I think social media was basically like pouring fuel on a fire. It wasn’t the fire itself — but it was the fuel that was making everything 10 times harder to deal with. And I saw that in myself as well.”
In 2020, as a freshman at CU Boulder, Freeman founded the digital wellness nonprofit NoSo (No Social Media) November, which gives teens (the age group most vulnerable to social media’s impacts) hands-on support and tools to find a healthy technology-life balance — resources she wishes would have been available at her high school.
Freeman credits her inspiration for the project to the documentary The Social Dilemma, which details how companies such as Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter (now X) manipulate users by using algorithms that encourage addiction to their platforms. The film helped her grasp the control a handful of tech designers can have over how social media users like herself think, act and live.
“My attention was the product being bought and sold by advertisers, and I had no say in that,” she said. “It sparked a passion in me.”
These experiences and insights led Freeman to the strategies behind NoSo November. Through speaking events, mindfulness workshops and an annual social media detox challenge, the initiative seeks to spread awareness about social media’s dangerous design. Teens can participate in the challenge at three different levels: fully or partially deleting social media apps, or using digital wellness tips to make their phone less addictive. Though encouraged to join the detox in November, participants can take on the challenge anytime throughout the year.
Since 2020, NoSo November’s programs have reached more than 28,000 students — thanks to grant funding; partnerships with K-12 schools, teen groups and universities; and the knowledge she gained as a Leeds School of Business graduate.
Freeman is a two-time winner of the Female Founder Entrepreneurship Competition under CU Boulder’s New Venture Challenge, which gained funding for NoSo November and helped her put together a business model and concrete messaging for the nonprofit. She was also recognized on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” 2025 list for her efforts to empower youth and promote mindful social media use.
After graduating in 2024, she has served as NoSo November’s CEO full-time and expanded the nonprofit’s programs to school districts in Canada as a fellow for McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy in Montreal. In spring 2025, she hired NoSo November’s first two paid employees, which means she’s no longer a “solopreneur” — her proudest accomplishment yet.
“NoSo November has genuinely been the biggest blessing of my entire life,” she said. “I would not want to be doing anything else.”
Illustration by Eugéne
