Richard Freed, PhD, is a psychologist and author who has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Atlantic, on NPR and CNBC, and in other media outlets. Dr. Freed is a leading expert on Silicon Valley’s use of persuasive design (psychological manipulation) in social media, video games, and online videos and how that affects children’s health. He wrote the first major media article on the subject; testified at the California State Assembly Judiciary Committee in favor of AB 2408, the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act (Cunningham and Wicks), which limits the industry’s use of addictive algorithms; co-wrote a journal article on the unethical use of persuasive design on children; and co-led a national campaign encouraging the American Psychological Association to condemn the unethical practice of psychologists employing persuasive design in consumer technologies used by kids.

Freed believes that the knowledge of persuasive design’s transformational and destructive impact on this generation of youth should no longer be the domain of a handful of tech elite. The science-based low-screen childhood now provided only a handful of children and teens must be made available to all kids.

Freed speaks nationally to groups of parents, teachers, and health care providers. Receiving his professional training at Cambridge Hospital / Harvard Medical School and the California School of Professional Psychology, he is on the advisory boards of the Screen Time Action Network at Fairplay, Families Managing Media, and Wait Until 8th. Dr. Freed lives in Walnut Creek, California and is the proud father of two daughters.