One of the biggest battles for today’s parent is balancing our children’s technology use. As a parent and a therapist, I deal with this in my home and at the office. Although internet/technology addiction has not yet found its way into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, professionals in the mental health field are witnessing the negative…
Category: Social Media
Game Theorist Memorializes A Friend Who Died from Suicide
My son Alex, an avid fan of the Game Theorist YouTube channel, last week sent me a remarkably compelling video Losing the Battle. It is the Game Theorist himself offering a tribute to his friend and video editor. I’ve attached it to this post and I hope you’ll watch it. If you don’t talk a…
Insta, Finsta, Snapchat, Nudes: Teens and Sexual Expression on Social Media
Nicole and I are just finishing our chapter on Sexting, Snapchat, and Finstagram for Consent-Based Sex Education, Book Two: Parenting Teens in an Internet Age. The book is going out to our focus groups, likely in October. Book One: Parenting Teens for Sexual Competence is finishing it’s focus group run and should be to reviewers…
Pet Instagrams: Grace Makes Her Debut On Fox 4 Evening News
I think an Emmy is in the offing for Grace the Therapy Cat. She made her TV debut on July 23rd in a segment on the Fox 4 News at 10pm as the only cat featured in a very doggy piece on how Instagram brings the joy of pets to its many users. Grace does…
Fox 4 Therapy Thursday: The Easiest Solution for Limiting Phone and Game Access I've Ever Seen
I’m pretty tech savvy. I know how to set up an alternative, filtered web browser on my son’s iPhone. I can time his cellular access from the Verizon website. I can shut down my router after 11pm. But even I don’t want to do that every time I need to redirect him to homework or…
Finstagram: Weird or Wonderful
According to traditional media, teen culture is weird. We can’t define what “dating” is, we send nudes to each other and think nothing of it, we can’t afford diamonds, we’re always on our phones, and we waste our money on avocado toasts. We’ve detached emotion from our sex lives, make memes, and laugh about our…
How Teens Use Selfies and Social Media to Enhance or Degrade Self-Esteem
Teens and young adults love to post moments from their daily lives on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, and a few even still use Facebook, though for most that’s something us old folks like to tinker with. But parents and many family psychologists wonder whether posting a teen’s best, most glamorous moments, and most perfectly filtered portraits only serves to…