Rutgers Junior Launches Movement To Get Young People Off Their Phones, The Internet

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Adnan Alkhalili, a junior at Rutgers, was lying in bed awake and doomscrolling on his phone during the wee hours one winter morning when an idea came to him.

“I just realized that this can’t be normal,” said Alkhalili, who is majoring in psychology with a minor in biochemistry. “Most Gen Z spend all of their time on their devices and then end up with medication — because we're all chronically sick — that we end up taking for the rest of our lives. We can’t assume that we have to live like this.”

It was that realization that sparked Alkhalil to launch the Touch Grass Together movement, which encourages a digital disconnection in favor of a reconnection to the real world.

The 20-year-old said he was worried about how young people exist in conditions that harm their health and wellness — including algorithm manipulation on social media platforms, processed foods and indoor isolation. Alkhalili also thought about how young people really should “touch grass,” which is slang for telling someone to get off the Internet and go outside.

Alkhalil said he wanted to do something about "the health crisis my generation was living through,” so he took a train from New Brunswick to Washington, D.C., to speak with legislators.

Alkhalili met with representatives of senators Cory Booker, D-NJ, Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin and Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, among others. Alkhalili said he also met directly with the secretary and deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as well as the chief of staff to the U.S. surgeon general.

“I sat with their teams, talked about what was happening to young people and left more convinced than ever that a student-led movement could have a real seat at that table.”

It was in the nation's capital that Alkhalili, of Wayne, befriended Sam Sievers, an engineering student attending the University of Maryland and the son of a diplomat who grew up living in multiple countries throughout the Middle East. He and Sievers formed Touch Grass Together in 2025. Alkhalili said the movement aims to promote digital disconnection, combat screen addiction and metabolic dysregulation among generations Z and Alpha.

Ironically, they share their message on social media to get young people off social media.

They launched social media campaigns, such as this one on Instagram, which encourage young people to get off the Internet and disconnect from the digital world.

“I was thinking, if we're going to do this on a really big scale and reach as many people as possible, we need to find a way that we can ensure that we are not just talking about health, but they're still becoming healthier,” said Alkhalil, who is the CEO of Touch Grass

Together, the two appeared on The Dr. Phil Podcast in January.

A critical element of Touch Grass Together is its field operations on college and university campuses and the recruitment of student delegates, namely 85 influencers charged with creating viral videos and spreading the organization’s message. About 20 of them are paid; others are interns and volunteers.

“They make a social media page and they just promote silly, healthy, Gen Z topics and focus on getting people to go and do something healthy and highlighting healthy moments,” Alkhalili said. “These students basically host large-scale events on campus and they get people to come outside and touch grass. During Valentine's Day, we had an event where people basically just hugged a tree.”

Touch Grass Together social media posts have received more than 150 million video views and about 160,000 interactions overall, said Alkhalili, adding that the group has more than 1 million followers between Instagram and TikTok and 123,927 pledges on its website.

He credited Jack Hemphill, the associate program manager in the Office of Population Health at Rutgers, and co-founder of the Rutgers Health Service Corps, for having “his door open for students” as well as providing inspiration.

Hemphill said Alkhalili “goes above and beyond in pretty much everything that he does. I wasn't too surprised when I heard that he started his own group and got featured.”

“He's really the epitome of the kind of students we love to see within the corps," said Hemphill. "We want them to take what they learn and feel empowered to then go out and make a difference. And that's really what he did.”

This article was re-written in a press release from Rutgers.