137. The Hidden Dangers of Social Media Use: Mental Health Risks for Teens Online & How Parents Can Help feat. Dr. Lisa Strohman

Mar 2

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Today's guest is Dr. Lisa Strohman—an attorney, clinical psychologist, and author who has widely become known for her advocacy and education around mental wellness as it relates to our digital lives. She is also the founder and director of Digital Citizen Academy, one of the first organizations to address the global issue of technology addiction and overuse. In this episode, we discuss the dangers of technology use and how teens can use social media in healthier ways, the symptoms of screen addiction, the worst social media platforms for mental health, and advice for parents on setting technology boundaries and helping their teens avoid dangers online.

Dr. Strohman's Website: https://drlisastrohman.com/

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ Unplug: Raising Kids in a Technology Addicted World

+ Digital Distress: Growing Up Online

+ Frances Haugen Testimony

+ Digital Citizen Academy

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: [00:00:00] Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.

You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

So let's dive in this week on She persisted.

Dr. Strohman: There's real risks online and so, as parents, we have to stop being afraid to talk about some of those scarier aspects and bring our kids in to have a conversation where their voice matters too. So they can ask us questions that they're not afraid to tell us.

Yeah. The minute we can give kids a power to have a voice, , and to me, I, I say this all the time and I hope your audience listens really loudly. Because it's not a secret. But your generation is the most powerful generation ever in our history. you can fight back and you can have a voice in this

Hello, hello and welcome to She Persisted. If you're new here, I'm Sadie. I'm a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying psychology. I love all things mental health, and started, she persisted after my own mental health journey. I went to intensive treatment for a year and a half for severe depression and anxiety.

And then afterwards I started, she persisted because I wanted to share everything I learned from treatment and let other teens know that recovery is possible and very achievable, which I did not believe before going to [00:01:00] treatment and also create the resource that I wish I would've had when I was struggling.

So that's a little bit about me and she persisted. But today we're talking about a very important. Topic when it comes to teen mental health, this is one of my most asked questions, which every single adult in the world wants to know about, which is teens and social media usage.

Today we are bringing on Dr. Lisa Stroman. She is an expert in digital wellness and mental health and social media usage. She has worked with thousands of parent schools and children all around the world. , she's both an attorney and a clinical psychologist.

So she really understands both the legislation that is currently in place when it comes to social media and mental health, as well as how it impacts teens and the brain, especially the developing brain. So, This is Stach an enlightening episode. I learned so much about what boundaries are important to set, what you can do to improve your boundaries, what you can do to be a smarter, more effective digital citizen.

And also advice for [00:02:00] parents who want to support their teens and kids using social media, but also having good mental health. So the highly requested topic and episode, let's dive in.

Sadie: thank you so much for joining me and she persisted today. I'm so, so, so excited to have you on the show because you are an expert in one of my most frequently asked questions, so I'm so excited to dive into all things teens and social media, use, and technology because it's something that teens have questions about and parents as.

Dr. Strohman: thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Appreciate it. So

Sadie: to start, I would love to hear about your background, why you decided to work in the mental health field, and then how you started specializing in this very niche area within the mental

Dr. Strohman: health field. I've always loved like people and like the psychology of people and trying to figure that out.

And so kind of as a young student when I was starting college, I. Like psychology was easy for me and, and it was just really cool to understand the mechanisms of like why we do the things that we do right. And traumas of [00:03:00] childhood and all of that stuff. So I got interested in the psychology and then I had a professor at uc Davis that, , saw me working with autistic children and I was doing a lot of advocacy work and so she just, she was like, you should look.

Law psychology program. And so that kind of led me into, , what I didn't know I was getting myself into, but going to law school and getting a PhD at the same time,

Sadie: it was Oh my goodness. Yeah. , that must have been insane to balance.

Dr. Strohman: , it was hard. It was, I was married, I got married young and , we went off to the east coast and my husband and I shared, , basically study rooms for four years and like, just kind of jammed it through and, , and got it done and I.

so much. I worked in Congress for a summer. I got to be a legislative assistant, and I also, , worked at the FBI in the profiling unit as an honors intern. Wow. So, , yeah, it was really, it's, it was a really exciting time in my

Sadie: life. That's amazing. So many different pieces of background. So many different, it feels like different industries, but really, really inspiring and amazing [00:04:00] to hear.

Awesome.

Dr. Strohman: Thank you. I think sometimes it's right place, right time. Right, right.

Sadie: So I would love to kind of break this episode up into a couple of different areas. I'd love to first hear your thoughts on social media and technology and teens in general, and then kind of coming at it from a parent's perspective of what your best practices are.

What do you advise parents do when they're worried about their teen and their use of technology? And then kind of ending with talking about social media addiction, , and your thoughts there, but to. Teens, technology and social media. What is your, your insight there? Is it as bad as everyone thinks it is?

Is it not as terrible. What should we know, , about the topic?

Dr. Strohman: Well, I think that with teens, like teens are developmentally trying to figure themselves out, and I think that timing wise, I happen to be in the program, like in my law school program. F b I program right at the time that the internet was deregulated.

, like I saw it happening and when I started my clinical practice, you know, I've had [00:05:00] over a decade of time now, like watching kids kind of change over time. So when you say is a, as bad as they think it is, I think that we have to think about the consumption of data that comes with it. And I don't necessarily think that the tech industry intended.

The silos and the information to like segregate people at such a high level. But unfortunately, that's what has happened. So, you know, I'll have a teen and she might be interested in like horses and her friend might be interested in dogs, and they're gonna now look at two different silos and we're no longer diversifying attention, like the tech industry is choosing for us, right?

The teens don't get a voice in that. And so they're getting pushed into these areas and. We've become kind of more siloed than ever and it just makes that part of it makes me nervous because the data that comes in really is about what they think that we should see and not necessarily giving kind of broad spectrum and opening the hearts and minds of.

Kids to be in [00:06:00] inquisitive and curious about one another.

Sadie: Yeah, it's like a, a good and a bad thing. How good the algorithm is at what it does. It's feels great because it's like, oh my gosh, these videos are hilarious. Or this is the content I love to consume. And then when you think about your for you page, it really is.

For you. It's not what your friends are seeing. It's not what your parents are seeing. It's so different for everyone and it is so niche down to what you've expressed your interest to be, that there's all these other like quote unquote sides of TikTok or parts of Instagram or communities that you just don't even know exist.

Dr. Strohman: Right. And I think that, it's interesting to me when they started, and you know, this better that, but they'll like create these niche groups and like you're either in or you're out. And so I, I think a lot of adults don't understand, there are various different tos and like, and there's, there's Taylor Swift, TikTok

Sadie: Cool.

Like all these other random things. Yes.

Dr. Strohman: Right. And it's cool to be in some of them and it's like nerdy to be in others. And, and so I think that, you know, again, if I think as a clinical psychologist, as a developmental. Perspective. If, if you don't fit in as a teen [00:07:00] and you don't feel like you're accepted, then you're lost and you're rejected.

And that can cause some pretty severe long-term consequences.

Sadie: Does the capacity that you are engaging with social media and technology matter, like if you are using the internet and social media from a more academic perspective and you're doing Zoom School or you're on the computer all day versus scrolling after school on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram, whatever it is, does that kind of intention and and goal that you are using technology with matter when it comes to mental health results?

Dr. Strohman: I, I think it definitely matters. I think I talk about this as kind of that digital diet and you know, like the same way we have to consume like healthy fruits and vegetables and grains and things like that. And the top of that triangle should be, you know, just a little bit of like the sweets and things like that.

We have to look at that as tech for tool versus like tech as a toy. Yeah. And to me you have to balance it, right? And so that's a really good point that I think a lot of [00:08:00] times we don't talk. The reasons why we're asking kids to kind of balance that better. , but most of the time I usually find, if, if you could explain it and you give them the understanding behind it, they will start to help regulate themselves or each other in that reign and, and really figure out ways to use it as a tool so that the tech isn't using them as a tool.

And that's what I really try to encourage them to. .

Sadie: So before we dive into those exact tools and principles that listeners can use, I would love to hear your thoughts on Zoom School and so many teens and kids really just increasing their technology consumption and their media consumption and what you saw with your clients and within the community, , , of mental health and how that extreme increase of technology use was impacting.

Dr. Strohman: Oh, that's, so the zoom, the zoom world of like putting kids on devices, what the schools were trying to do is scramble and get academic access to their kids, which was amazing. And, and as a world we had to come together globally and figure [00:09:00] that out. And what happened was that those devices that were school bound and protected came home and.

in a school setting under those wifi parameters, like the schools are able to protect them from going into those kind of dark corners of, of the world and spending a lot of time on social. And so when they were at home, the kids had free access to that. And so what I saw was, , and , working with the partner in Gaggle in education, they actually showed the statistic we had like a 280% increase in.

inappropriate sexual viewing for elementary school kids. Like, there's incredible things that occurred that it's gonna be really hard to unwind, right? Because we have already gotten there and, , it makes it very, very difficult. , for them on their end to like not be curious about those things. So that's just one example.

I mean, disordered eating is another one. , you've got higher levels of depression. You have higher levels of anxiety. , there's a lot of kids that now that they've opened that Pandora's box, like they don't really know how to [00:10:00] regulate it themselves and parents. We're kind of at this chasm where they don't really understand social and how kids are using it.

And so the kids are kind of running wild and they don't have any guidance, and so we have to really look at that and, and support the parents and, and focus on what they can do. .

Sadie: If you were parenting a teen or if you were a teen today, what would your like perfect scenario be for your relationship with technology, with school, with social media, other consumption?

What would that like best case scenario

Dr. Strohman: be? . Well, I've got a 14 and 15 year old, so I am parenting 18 . I've got two teenagers. You know exactly what's happening. Yeah, I know. It's, yeah. , you know, I think now, I mean, I've obviously been ahead of the curve a bit because this is my area, but you know, I think that my ideal, when I look at where we are now, and particularly after Hoggins testimony in.

And the fact that she kind of opened up behind the scenes of how tech is, is really not protecting children and not taking, the [00:11:00] reality of what's happening online. Seriously. Yeah. , Senator Blumenthal was the guy who, he's the senator, I think he's in Connecticut, but he was the one who went in and he like created a fake account and then instantly like had all of this disordered eating, information, starting to spam into his account and.

for the first time. Yeah. And so we now have this like public awareness of it. And parents I think, should look at that and say, all right, as a parent, how do I moderate the, the parts that aren't being moderated yet? And so I think that we have to, to recognize that there has to be something like a societal change has to occur, unfortunately, that typically involves civil litigations and we're forcing people to make those change.

Yeah. So, Yeah. So when I tell parents I'm like, you know, they're not doing it yet. Like, there's these things that have to happen first, and those things are starting to happen. But as a parent, just manage yourself as, , an understanding, empathetic person, but understand like in my household, my kids don't have any social, and so they are, they [00:12:00] stand out, they're a bit odd, but the kids that wanna hang out with them and the people that respect them like will text them and we'll include them.

My kids are probably the ones that are spending more time outside and like doing things in the real world, , and don't have the same anxieties and stresses that I see with a lot of my clients. Yeah. So, you know, every parent has to make those own choices, but I. I just wanna encourage your parents to understand it is not about being a bad parent.

It is. There really is. If they haven't looked at the Hogan testimony or if they haven't seen some of that, they need to, to really educate themselves on that because they can't protect their kids without doing the work themselves because the industry isn't doing it.

Yeah,

Sadie: so for teens that want to build a more healthy relationship with technology and social media, what can they do to moderate that? Especially if they're like, I can't stop scrolling. I feel like I am using social media or technology more than I would like to, but I don't know how to have a more healthy relationship with that.

What would your advice [00:13:00] be? .

Dr. Strohman: So I would say, you know, again, using tech as a tool, so if you're going to go on those socials, set limits for yourself, like I have adults that, that set limits on their own phone, right? So it's not just the teens that have trouble with it. It is designed to keep you addicted.

It is designed to keep you interested in what they're sending you. As we all know, there's lots of funny videos and things that come across. Yeah. So set the time limits is a, really key part for what I think that they should do and then using it. A measure of presenting yourself to the world.

Like this is a public open diary to the world. And so I think back to when I was accepted into the F B I and I was invited to become a visiting scholar, like it was amazing. I don't know whether or not, if I was your age and I had, you know, I had had access to that, like there wouldn't have been a record or things that I would've done or shenanigans online.

Yeah, so go through and clean up your social, like make sure that you're presenting yourself in a way that your future self would be really proud of. You don't wanna. [00:14:00] Overlook that. And so I do a lot of, of work with kids and trying to figure out how to present myself in, in a way that I'm proud of and understand that that's your brand as a kid and that's how we use social more appropriately.

Sadie: love that For parents. If we shift gears a bit to talk about your advice for helping their teens build that healthy relat. What is your advice there to, to set those limits and make sure that their teen isn't developing a social media or technology addiction, but also have that healthy relationship and not just have the teen be like, I hate you, you're ruining my life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What is your advice there for parents that are like at a loss of how to

Dr. Strohman: proceed? . Yeah. I would tell parents that Jump in with them, right? It's not fair for us to go in and oversee the kids and be like, you're doing this too much. I will tell you that I go to schools all across the United States and I talk to the kids.

I'm like, who do you think in your house uses the phone the most or is on their phones the most? And they always say it's the parents. So yeah. It's like if you're gonna tell your kid to have limits [00:15:00] on it, sit down, open up , the part of your phones that like track your time and your usage and do that together as a family.

Mm-hmm. , how much are you spending on social? How much are you spending on academic? How much are you spending on, you know, messages or Gmail or the things like that. Look at that together and be transparent with them. Do that journey together so that you keep each other accountable. We don't need more things that separate us from our kids and our teens as parents.

Yeah. So I think we have to. A little bit more open to identifying and understanding and admitting that we also have the same propensity to use it too much and Yeah. And need to have limits support it.

Sadie: If you were to sit down with, with your kids and if they were using social media or they were using their phones more than you felt was healthy, how would you have that conversation?

, if we were to walk through that? .

Dr. Strohman: well I have, so one of the things that I've worked with parents on before is doing like a digital detox program, I call it mm-hmm. . So usually you can see between seven and 14 days a massive change with kids. So kind of [00:16:00] like the kids that might be, , on a d d meds and they take holiday breaks over holidays or weekend breaks.

Right. The same thing with technology. Like you should take, we had tech-free Tuesday grow. Or me growing up, my kids growing up . So tech-free Tuesday was a fun way of like, we did board games and we played outside and built forts and did all the bunch of that stuff. Right. So it's, it's creating the ability for you to give that example and give them direction on how to do it specifically with

Sadie: them.

Mm-hmm. . I love that. I think that's so important and I think especially as a team, that was something that was so difficult for me where my parents were like 30 minutes a day and I think, but you have so much time on your phone, like it's different. But to really go at it from a collaborative lens I think just gives you such an appreciation for how challenging it can be to set these limits and go through this process.

And also the accountability and of, and support of doing it with family members can be really effecti.

Dr. Strohman: Well, and I think that a great point that you're bringing up is how, how limited you felt and your parents [00:17:00] really don't know what the technological teen life is like. Yeah. And so you guys have been shoved into this like tech world and.

as parents, we're trying to protect you from you know, the algorithmic nightmares of like taking you down the depression pages and all of those things that are really dark and scary for us as parents, but we're not taking the time to understand. from a perspective, the compassion of like, you also don't wanna be isolated and you don't wanna be left out from your friends, and that's a really important part of being a teenager.

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Sadie: If you were to give like a perfect age, quote unquote for one teens or adults, Got a phone or got social media. This is something that is very friend of mine because my brother is in seventh grade right now and his friends are starting to get phones and he's like, I only have an iPod. Everyone else has a phone, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So we were literally just having this conversation last week. But knowing what you know about this industry and having so much insight and having worked with so many clients that have struggled with relationships with technology, if you had to give. Age or, , a time when teens were introduced to both a phone and then social [00:19:00] media, what would that.

Dr. Strohman: So ideally I separate the two actually. I say, ideally, you don't really need a phone through middle school. Middle school. I mean, you know this, it's the dumpster fire years, right? Like, so you middle school is rough. . It's very rough. Yeah. It's like the hardest period of time. And so the phone to me, if you can wait till after eighth grade. , and the, the competing nature there. And the reason why I have that is because, . For some reason, the tech industry has decided that at 13, that we are like mature adults and we can have anything on a phone. So some of us, like you had parents that were like, you have 30 minutes a day, and they were probably monitoring you.

Yes. But there's a massive amount of children that are handed phones. And they, they don't have parents that have any idea how to use it. They are sometimes, in these worlds and they get this phone and the tech industry lets them jump into any of these worlds without any sort of regulation.

So again, that's, kind of the, the place where I am of like that societal change Has to happen from a regulatory standpoint. Mm-hmm. first for [00:20:00] me to feel more comfortable that kids can have phones at younger ages. Yeah. , but I also don't think that they need them.

I think that kids need to get those social skills of learning how to have eye contact with one another, having conversations and all that. So the phone pieces that. Social media is another piece. I, the, the sweet spot for me is sophomore year for girls, because girls are mean online a lot. Mm-hmm. and we are emotional beings.

I remember being a teenager and just waking up mad and I'm pretty sure I probably would've gone on social and like taken that out on someone. So I get it. I have so much empathy for it, but I also didn't have a pulpit to the world or to all my friends to tell everybody. , I felt that minute. Yes.

Sadie: Status update first thing in the morning. Today is terrible .

Dr. Strohman: Yeah. Right, right. So I think sophomore year is usually when it, like that's the shift I see in girls and boys they tend to make better decisions starting in junior year. , so that's my advice is like once you can kind of figure yourself out, but that middle school freshman year,

Those [00:21:00] are really hard changes. Middle school is hard for other reasons, but freshman year you're jumping into a school where you might be 13 or 14 and you've got 18, 17, and 18 year olds there, right? Yeah. So that's a massive shift and if you put social in that mix and like start to make those connections, there can be some pretty disastrous results.

It can happen. So that's why I always say like, let 'em get through the first year. , if they really still want social media their sophomore year, then. Then that's probably the best time to give it to 'em.

Sadie: Do you have a ranking of which social media is like the best for mental health versus the work stem?

What you're seeing with clients where they're like, Snapchat is totally fine, but TikTok is so challenging. Like what are you seeing with those different types of apps?

Dr. Strohman: Yeah. , well, they're dangerous for different reasons, right? So I think Instagram to me is very diabolical for girls. Yeah. Like it is, it is so visual, right?

You have a massive amount of disordered eating in my clients. , I've got a lot of kids that are having anxiety and depression and again, it hasn't been fixed, right? Yeah. That, that algorithm that takes you down. So [00:22:00] if, if we just look up something on. , even if it's like body positivity or fit life or whatever, you know, these hashtags that it, it's going to take you into these worlds of very disordered thinking mm-hmm.

, and, and influence you to feel different about yourself. I, you know, I feel like Snapchat the same thing of like, the filters are like super fun, right? Like, and filter. Filter.

Sadie: Yeah.

Dr. Strohman: Right. And it's super. . I look at it and I think, okay, I understand why they're doing the filter. Because they're capturing your facial recognition for data purposes.

Yeah. So you are being now identified and being cross-referenced into a ton of different platforms where they can sell your identity and put it in other places. And that terrifies me. Yeah. Right. So

Sadie: in bad for shoving funny filters in my parents' faces, like last week I was like, look at you bald.

And they're like, that's.

Dr. Strohman: Yeah. Well, I mean, and again, it goes back to it gets so out of hand. Like we don't think about where is that data going and why and all of the things, right? , [00:23:00] and I think, again, I don't wanna be the person who doesn't like to have any fun, and I certainly have like, Tried my filters, my girlfriend has.

, and I, you know, we send each other funny things, , on there, , but to me it's when it becomes obsessive. And, and so Snapchat to me kids think that, that those messages disappear. Well, I work with internet Crimes against Children and it's like one of the top. Apps that give us information on a daily.

Yeah. And so none of those messages disappear. Yeah. And when kids are told that, that makes me really angry. , right? Yeah. Their geolocation is being open and things like that. And then TikTok, of course, I think is like the worst personally, , in terms of, , the information because they are intentionally kind of like shoving super, fun light content into kids' minds.

And it's just replacing that human aspect of real thoughtful communication. I mean mm-hmm. , you've got a seventh grade brother. Like, every, every teenager I ask is like a senior, or when I'm in a high school, I'm like, how many of you have the younger siblings? How many of you would like your younger siblings to be on social?

[00:24:00] And nobody raises their hand. Right? Like, no, absolutely. Cause you guys have made the mistake, right? Yeah. Like you're terrified for them. Yeah. So, so I can't, I, I don't wanna elevate one over the other, but you know, I. it, it really has a lot to do with like, where is the algorithm taking our kids?

It is never anywhere good. And a lot of kids get into these very dark places and they are afraid to tell their parents or talk to somebody about it because they think it's gonna mean that their tech gets taken away. And that kind of cycle is like terrifying to me in what I mm-hmm. , what I'm trying to unwind.

from

Sadie: a parent's perspective, what are your thoughts? About like going through phones, going through messages. If you are in that position, like you just mentioned, where your teen feels scared to talk to a parent and you're like, something isn't right, but I'm not sure what it is. What are your thoughts there?

Dr. Strohman: So I, I always think that it should be an open conversation with the family. I don't think that a lot of parents like spy on their kids and they and they, I do, I do [00:25:00] spot checking with my son's. Yeah. You know, information or just his text messages. But I think that as a parent, you have to realize that.

When they're young, they don't have like a fully developed frontal brain. And so going in and spot checking and just making sure there's not like super craziness going on and understanding that they respect the fact , that as a parent it's our job to just kind of oversee them the same way it was when we were helping them cross the street or mm-hmm.

helping them like understand that when you go to Disneyland, , you probably wanna do check-ins so that we know where you are and you're safe. , yeah, there's 4.8 billion people online every day on online, on social. Like it, you know, you think about the percentage of, of predators that are online. You think about the percentage of people that are online that are trying to you know, get inappropriate pictures of teens and things like that.

There's real risks online and so, as, as parents, we have to stop being afraid to talk about some of those like [00:26:00] scarier aspects and bring our kids in to have a conversation where their voice matters too. So they can ask us questions that they're not afraid to tell us. Like, Hey, like this picture came across, I don't know what to do with it.

Yeah. The minute we can give kids a power to, to have a voice, , and to me, I, I say this all the time and I hope your audience listens really loudly. Because it's not a secret. And I've been like screaming at the top of my lungs for a really long time. But, but your generation is the most powerful generation ever in our history.

Your cohort, if you came together and said, we want a safe internet and we want you to be responsible, they would have to listen cuz you are the, the greatest power. And so the fact that they silo everybody and they don't tell you that. Of that power is, yeah, that's the challenge to me. Like I always want kids to know here's what they're doing with your data and hey, by the way, that you don't have to agree to that

Yeah, you can fight back and you can tell yourself and have a voice in this. And that's my [00:27:00] goal is I just want everybody to understand the rules so that they have a, a fair. Fight in their, social digital life and their, their footprint.

Sadie: Mm-hmm. . So when things do cross a line into social media addiction, beyond just maybe having an unhealthy relationship, what does that look like?

What qualifies an unhealthy relationship with technology as technology or social media addiction? .

Dr. Strohman: , that's a great question. I, I have always, in my clinical practice, I've never called it addiction only a, there's no like real proper, , diagnosis. Yeah. In, in my book, right. DSM five is like the bible of psychology.

Yeah. I think putting labels on people is really dangerous, but what you're getting at is that technology overuse, dependency and the fact that , the social. is ruling us versus us, like enjoying social. And to me, I think that what it looks like is you start to withdraw from normal friend groups.

Like you're not as interested in the things that you're doing. , you tend to, , choose online realities over [00:28:00] real life realities. And so when it's more comfortable for you to stay, in your room behind a screen versus like having at least a 50 50 balance in the real world. That's when I start to say like, you need to probably have a conversation about that and figure out if we can walk back and put some measures in place to fix that.

Sadie: Yeah. How would you approach that as both a teen and a parent if you are like, I do feel like this is really unhealthy and I do need to take a step back. What is that first step that you take versus a teen and then as a parent trying to support that? .

Dr. Strohman: So with teens themselves, I think like peer mentoring groups and having groups, whether it's through a non-profit organization, a church or a school, however it is, but that peer-to-peer support with one another to have each other's back to make rules about it.

If you're going go hang out with your girlfriends at froyo, . Everybody puts their phones in the center, right? Mm-hmm. , instead of sitting there like on our phones, our

Sadie: phones getting the boomerang of the frozen yogurt.

Dr. Strohman: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So phone eats [00:29:00] first , right? Exactly.

Sadie: I am so guilty of that.

My family hates it. I'm like, there's one rule. I have to get a picture of the food first. I wanna see it later. Right. You're like, oh my God, .

Dr. Strohman: Right. So, so, so you have to think about your audience. Is that taking you away from that moment or is it just like a fun moment with friends and then you can put it away, right?

Like, think about as a teen, do you really wanna be a hostage of your phone or of that world of Feeling like you have to have a footprint to matter because that's what you've been sold as a team, as Gen Z. you've been told you're following and the number you have and all of that is like somehow attached to whether or not you're important in this world or not.

And you're a perfect example. You know, you are public, you are out there, you're putting yourself out there, but you're bringing really good content for your listeners and it's more important. the following or the number, I hope, right? Yeah. To you. Yeah, definitely. , so sharing your voice and being able to do that is a peer example and those are the strongest of having somebody else [00:30:00] that is willing to do that with you.

Yeah. . . And so, and then as a parent, I think that re I tell the parents that you need to have, like, I call it the power of one. If you have one other parent friend that you guys are on the same page, you're like, okay, we're gonna wait till eighth, like your brother. He's I'm sure coming home and saying like, everybody else has one.

I'm the only one that doesn't have it. No,

Sadie: it's crazy you're saying this because we were at the dinner table with our family friends who have a son that is his age as well and they were like, okay this year. We're giving the phone for Christmas and my parents were like, no, because that leaves us hanging.

Like, you can't do that because then we're the bad guys. Like joking back and forth. But no, it's so true. When you have that one other parent, like in the friend group, aligned, it shifts the entire dynamic.

Dr. Strohman: It totally does. And really, that's a serious conversation and you should bring back up to, with your parents that power of one is so important.

Yeah. And I think, I don't know who the family friends are and if they hear this or all

Sadie: said that they do listen sometimes .

Dr. Strohman: Okay. , but I think, , I also advise parents, it's like, don't make the [00:31:00] phone. A present, don't make it a gift . Like, my daughter got her first phone in eighth grade on a Thursday in the middle of November because most of her teachers were telling her finals, like they needed to do something on her phones and she didn't have a, a cell phone.

Mm-hmm. . And so it wasn't a gift, it was a tool for her, and it was something for her to use. Important. for her needs in her academic setting. And it was a tool I gave her because it is part of me and as mm-hmm. parents, we have to recognize we own that device and we are actually liable for not just the device, but for what our kids do on it.

Mm-hmm. . And so there's a multitude of cases that are out there that parents are being now held responsible for kids that are like sending out, you know, school threats and things like, 300, $400,000 at a time, and the parents are responsible to pay for that. So this is not like a just whimsy, like, oh, okay, everybody has it.

I should give 'em a phone. There's some serious consequences behind it, you know, you shouldn't just hand it to them without some sort of like contract and license and education and [00:32:00] training before we get, we did have

Sadie: a contract, my parents did do that. It was like multiple pages. This is so embarrassing.

Like this is important, Sadie.

Dr. Strohman: It's very important. Sadie . I would agree with your parents.

Sadie: Yeah. So funny. Oh my goodness. , my last question that I wanna ask you is if there was one or two things that you just wish the general public knew about technology and maybe the way that these organizations are, are using our information, our data, or the relationships that people have with technology that you're seeing in your own practice, what would that.

Dr. Strohman: You know, God, there's so many different things and there's so many important things. , you know, I would still say probably the most important thing if, if you had to take 30 minutes, is please watch, , Francis Hoggins testimony. Like search it up and listen to her voice. She was working behind the scenes for so long.

I've worked with nonprofits that, , went in behind the scenes and were looking at trafficking cases and the industry knows it's happening and they're not changing it. So I think that [00:33:00] as parents, the most important. Piece of advice, I would say is to understand that you're not a bad parent. There's a lot of us silently suffering behind closed doors, you know, almost like a, you know, an alcoholic or a drug addiction or anything like that where we don't want people to know how bad it is.

And how much we are isolated behind our devices because the industry is going after our children. They're going after us, and they're, and they're using a lot of money to go and create the, the attention. And so I just wanna encourage them to understand that, have a conversation about your kids, about it.

Let them understand what's going on so that they can be wise decision makers as they're kind of going through and starting that at appropriate times, , online. .

Sadie: I love that. I think that's an amazing way to encapsulate everything that we talked about and such an amazing takeaway. If you had any resources, book recommendations, podcasts, you obviously mentioned the testimony, which will be in today's show, notes that you would love to [00:34:00] direct people to after this episode.

, what would those be? Yeah,

Dr. Strohman: so one, I would say on my website, ask lisa.com. I try to put information out, , that takes you to my site. , and I'm always trying to help parents. Like, so if you have questions, I can't obviously do therapy, , outside of where I'm licensed, but if parents need help or they have questions, I'm always here to help.

, I do have, , I don't know if they've told you or not, but I do have. Two books. I have Unplug of Raising Kids in a Digital World. That that was my first, , book that I wrote with a co-author. And it, my dad called it a pamphlet. And so of course, I promptly went out and wrote another book, . And that one's Digital Distress. And that's my more recent book that I just released at the end of the pandemic. And that's all about Gen Z. And it talks about kind of why Gen Z is different in the struggles and , why we have to understand them in a better way. And that's a really good resource for parents.

And I'm excited to say that we have created a special link for you and your program so that your listeners can download it for free if

Sadie: they want to. Amazing. I can't wait to include that in the show notes. And [00:35:00] so many parents have emailed and dmd asking the exact questions that we cover today, so I know that's gonna be so helpful for them as a resource.

Dr. Strohman: That's awesome. I'm so excited that you do this and again, to me it's so important to have the voice of all of the generations talking and sharing and having empathy and understanding for one another. That's the most important part.

Sadie: A hundred percent. Thank you so much for joining me today, Lisa.

I'm so glad to have you once she persisted, and thank you for sharing so much insight with my audience. Thanks Sadie. Appreciate it.

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