Leadership isn’t about having every answer. It’s about setting direction, trusting the right people, and making decisions with conviction.

As a part of my series about 5 Ways To Create a Healthy Relationship With Screens and Technology, I had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas Donninger.

Thomas Donninger is the CEO of Wizz, a Gen Z social discovery app and one of Voodoo’s flagship products. With over a decade of experience building mobile products, Thomas has spent his career at the intersection of technical excellence and product ambition. Before Wizz, he co-founded Vili&Ve, a digital studio working with clients ranging from startups to Toyota, and later joined Bim, an award-winning personal assistant app recognized by Apple. In 2018, he joined Voodoo’s newly launched apps division and built Wizz from the ground up, moving from Lead iOS Engineer to Head of Mobile before becoming CEO in June 2024. Thomas holds a degree in computer science from EPITECH.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your backstory?

Thanks for having me. I’m an engineer who became CEO, which is its own kind of journey. I studied computer science at EPITECH, co-founded a digital studio working with clients from startups to Toyota, then joined Bim, a personal assistant app recognized by Apple. In 2018 I joined Voodoo’s apps division, co-founded and built Wizz from the ground up, starting as Lead iOS Engineer and becoming CEO in June 2024. I still think like a builder first, which shapes how I approach everything we do at Wizz.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Moving from Head of Mobile to CEO was more disorienting than I expected, even having co-founded and sold a company before. When you’ve been building alongside people for years, suddenly owning the complex decisions is a different kind of weight. What I learned fast is that leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about knowing whose answers to trust, and being decisive enough to move anyway. Stepping from Head of Mobile into the CEO role was a shift in altitude. Even after co-founding and selling a company, the scope of responsibility changes when the final call sits with you. What became clear quickly is that leadership isn’t about having every answer. It’s about setting direction, trusting the right people, and making decisions with conviction. I rely on the team constantly. That hasn’t changed.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now?

Always! Right now, we’re developing new features built around a simple idea: connecting people who share similar interests or are looking for the same kind of interaction in that moment. One of the things that makes Wizz special is the spontaneity, you get online and immediately connect with someone your age who’s also online right now, in the same country. What young people actually do with that connection is wonderfully human: they test out jokes, ask for opinions on their outfits, look for validation, play games, find someone to talk to after a rough day. Our new features lean further into that, making those spontaneous encounters even more likely to become something meaningful.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Between work and personal life, the average adult spends nearly 11 hours looking at a screen per day. How does our increasing screen time affect our mental, physical, and emotional health?

As someone who builds social apps, the most striking thing is how platforms designed to bring people together so often produce the opposite effect, especially for the most digitally savvy generations. Gen Z is the most connected in history, and yet they report higher rates of loneliness than any previous generation. Research backs this up in uncomfortable ways. According to Brown University Health, young people ages 18 to 24, with 8 out of 10 people from this age group feeling lonely. And they are constantly online. The issue is that most of what they’re consuming: algorithmically curated feeds, follower counts, highly produced content from peers that is designed to generate engagement. The result is a kind of social noise that feels stimulating but leaves people emptier than before they opened the app, craving for a deeper connection. That’s the status quo Wizz was built to move away from.

Can you share your top five ways people can improve mental wellness and create a healthy relationship with technology?

1. Ask Honestly: Is This App Serving You, Or Are You Serving It?

Most people have never stopped to evaluate whether the platforms taking up most of their screen time are actually making their lives better. Spend a week paying attention to how you feel after each session. If you consistently feel worse, more anxious, more inadequate, more restless — that’s data worth acting on.

2. Replace Passive Scrolling With Active Conversation

There’s a fundamental difference between consuming content about other people’s lives and actually talking to someone. One-on-one conversation, even through a screen, activates something genuinely human that scrolling a feed simply doesn’t.

3. Stop Performing Online

Legacy social media has turned self-expression into a competitive sport. Every post is an audition. People feel constant pressure to be funny, attractive, and aspirational at all times, and the gap between that performance and real life is where a lot of the anxiety lives. Seek out spaces, digital or otherwise, where you’re allowed to just be yourself: uncertain, in-progress, occasionally boring. That’s where real connection actually happens.

4. Build Structure Around Your Screen Time, Not Just Intentions

Willpower is not a reliable strategy when you’re competing against products built by teams of behavioral psychologists. Use every structural tool available to you, screen time limits, notification controls, app timers, phone-free zones in your home. Be especially deliberate about the beginning and end of your day, which is when habits are most deeply embedded.

5. Demand More From The Platforms You Use

This is the systemic shift that matters most. Individual habits are important, but we also need to hold technology companies accountable. Ask whether it profits from your anxiety.

Between social media distractions, messaging apps, and the fact that Americans receive 45.9 push notifications each day, Americans check their phones 80 times per day. How can people, especially younger generations, create a healthier relationship with social media?

Use “modes” to allow specific notifications for different time of the day, focus for work, study for learning and personal time for self. Reclaim the ability to check things on your own terms rather than being summoned constantly. The deeper issue is being honest about which platforms are actually resolving loneliness versus just filling time. Our data shows 69% of young people who feel lonely turn to social media as their main coping mechanism, including 37% who do so regularly. But most platforms aren’t built to resolve loneliness. They’re built to extend sessions. Those are very different goals. The answer isn’t going offline all at once. Be intentional about which digital interactions leave you feeling more connected, not less.

80% of smartphone users check their phones before they brush their teeth in the morning. What effect does starting the day this way have on people? Is there a better morning routine you suggest?

Starting the day with your phone hands over control of your mental state before you’ve had a chance to establish any. What I’d suggest is simple: create a buffer. Even 20 minutes of phone-free time in the morning: movement, a proper breakfast, sitting quietly without input. It establishes a baseline of calm that’s genuinely hard to recover once you’re already plugged in. It sounds minor, but the compounding effect is real. And it’s consistent with something I think about at Wizz: meaningful connection doesn’t require hours. The average session on our app is around 18 minutes. The goal was never more time, but what defines a better time?

Can you please give us your favorite life lesson quote?

I keep coming back to is Bill Gates: “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” It’s a short quote but it carries a lot. In tech especially, early success can create exactly the kind of blind spot that kills companies. The assumption that what worked before will keep working is often the most dangerous thing you can believe. At Wizz, we try to stay genuinely self-critical even when things are going well. That’s harder than it sounds when momentum is on your side.

What is the best way our readers can further follow your work online?

Wizz is available on the App Store and Google Play, and you can learn more about our product on our blog. The best way to understand what we’re building is honestly to see it. I share thoughts on products, technology, and digital safety on LinkedIn. And if you want the most unfiltered perspective on what Wizz actually is, ask a friend who uses it. They’ll tell you more than any article ever could.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.