Articles containing: social media

Digital Vigilance and Our Kids

We’ve reached a point in time where most of our kids have grown up with digital media as a way of life. Social media, instant viral news, e-learning, digital surveillance – it’s all here to stay. And it’s not all bad. But there are some legitimate concerns about how it’s impacting the mental health and safety of young people.

Unsettled About Instagram? Ways to Support Your Teen’s Mental Health – Shrinking It Down

It’s been an unsettling time for many, with the testimony by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and her disturbing claims that the company knows that Instagram causes mental harm to teen girls. In this episode of Shrinking It Down, Dr. Gene Beresin and Dr.

What’s Up With Everyone? A Youth Mental Health Campaign With Academy-Award Winning Aardman

We all know that it is best to support young people who are struggling with life’s challenges upstream, and not wait until they need clinical interventions. I have been leading a new multi-media campaign to do just this.

Media Literacy and Mental Health, featuring Common Sense Media – Shrinking It Down

Today’s young people are spending more time online than previous generations, and many parents and caregivers worry about how social media is affecting their mental health, and emotional and social well-being. Strengthening social media literacy skills can help us all better use media as engaged and informed consumers.

Is Your Teen an Emotional Sponge? – Shrinking It Down

Peers can be an excellent source of social support, and it’s great that more young people today talk to friends about their emotional challenges. But for every teen who shares, there’s another teen absorbing the info like an emotional sponge.

Kids Under Surveillance! – Shrinking It Down

Today’s kids and teens are increasingly under surveillance, including by their own schools and parents. In some ways this is nothing new. Adults have always monitored kids for risk.

Anxiety to Agency: Empowering Kids to Address Climate Change

You can also listen to this conversation with pediatrician and child psychiatrist Elizabeth Pinsky, MD on ways to support a child with climate change anxiety. Tune in below, or search for “Shrinking It Down” wherever you get your podcasts.

Digital Media and Body Image

Este artículo está disponible en español.

When it comes to social media and body image, there are a lot of questions. Gene Beresin and I have worked with individuals struggling with eating disorders, largely girls and young women and their families for years.

Let’s Talk About “Eighth Grade”

Lots of things crossed my mind as I cringed and smiled my way through Bo Burnham’s amazing new film, Eighth Grade.

First – and this particular sentiment was a near-constant refrain – I found myself swimming in gratitude that I was no longer in 8th grade myself.

There Are All Sorts of Ways of Making Things Better

Things might seem kind of awful lately.

Every news headline, from every corner of American ideology, feels pretty depressing.  We are subjected to nihilistic rants or apocalyptic predictions.  When do we smile? When our late-night talk-show hosts use our negativity for comedic material.  I’ll admit it.