About
The Problem
Community cohesion & social engagement in the United States and around the world has been on the decline for the past 50 years, precipitously so in the last 15. More Americans and people are becoming more isolated and sedentary than ever before. We spend more time alone staring at a screen than with other people. This isolated & sedentary lifestyle has serious effects on our health, happiness, and societal well-being. Over 74% of all human death worldwide is due to lifestyle-related diseases. The lifestyle that most humans are living is killing us.
Youth in the United States are especially affected. Youth suicide rate is higher than it's ever been. Since 2012 nearly all signs of overall mental health and happiness have been on an extremely steep downward decline. From 2009 to 2019, in just 10 years, rates of depression and anxiety tripled and youth suicide more than doubled.
Screen time mirrows those skyrocketing mental health statisitcs, as the graph to the right shows.
The science is in. A new study comes out practically every week, showing how deletrious modern day screen entertainment is to mental health.
We now know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the #1 factor that is driving this massive youth mental health crisis is addiction to modern day screen entertainment.
If nothing changes, the trajectory of this future generation has the overwhelming majority of them struggling with depression, anxiety, and ADD, just to name a few of the mental health issues that are currently plaguing Generation Z.
But we are not going to let that happen...
Our Solutions
There are many factors that contribute to over 74% of all human death coming from lifestyle related diseases, but the largest factors are an overtly isolated and sedentary lifestyle. And the #1 reason why more humans are overtly isolated and sedentary is screen entertainment addiction.
A Primally Playful Foundation was created to change humanity's trajectory by:
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Cultivating community through events that bring people together to socialize and play.
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Train teachers to teach youth:
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Social Emotional Intelligence
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Mental health & how to be happy
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How screen entertainment affects mental health
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How to create classrooms that are fun and that foster friendships.
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Learn how we are implementing our solutions
Founder's Story
My name is Jared Hippler and I served in the Peace Corps in the Kyrgyz Republic from 2009-11, and in Guatemala in 2017.
During my first service I was director of health and happiness at an orphanage. I learned about non-formal experiential teaching models that helped me develop play-based learning techniques that made learning fun and engaging.
I taught life skills through play-based education. After serving I volunteered on organic farms in South East Asia, working alongside locals. We didn't share verbal language but we had fun with each other and bonded through work and play.
Jared with kids from the orphanage during his service, 2011
In the capital square during new year's eve, 2009
When I got back to the United States in 2011, I noticed a lot of people looking at their phones on public transportation, maybe 60% of the people (now that number is closer to 90%), completely ignoring someone that would come and sit next to them. That new individual would pull their phone out, and do the same. Something felt innately unhealthy and sad about what I was witnessing.
It was this time that I started to read more about the state of humanity overall as far as health, happiness, and societal cohesion were concerned. My gut feeling that what I was witnessing was unhealthy, was affirmed then, and especially so over the past 10 years.
I wanted to create an organization that reminded people that our greatest joys come from other people, not a screen.
