The headquarters of Boundless Mind looks as if it were created by a set designer to satisfy a cultural cliché. The tech startup is run out of a one-car garage a few blocks from California's Venice Beach. On the morning I visited, in March, it was populated by a dozen screens–phones, tablets, monitors–and half as many 20-something engineers, all of whom were male and bearded, and one of whom wore a cowboy hat. Someone had written in blue marker across the top of a whiteboard in all caps: You're building amazing sh-t. But that, more or less, is where the Silicon Valley stereotypes end. Ramsay Brown, 29, and T. Dalton Combs, 32, the co-founders of Boundless Mind, are hardly the college dropouts of tech lore; they're trained neuroscientists. And unlike most tech entrepreneurs, they are not trying to build the next big thing that will go viral.

Look up from this screen right now. Chances are, most of the other people in your line of sight are staring at their phones or other devices. And if they don't happen to have one out, it is certainly tucked away in a pocket or bag. But are we truly addicted to technology? Still, while the debate rages on, some doctors and technologists are focusing on solutions.