Clinical psychologist says teens are experiencing too much exposure to social media

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - It's the peak of summer break for kids.

The freedom of not being in classrooms has its pros and cons.

That's why OSF Health Care and St. Anthony's Health Center in Alton, Illinois is offering a free series of workshops to help parents of children from
preschoolers to teens focus on mental wellness this summer.

It kicks off this week with a look at social media.

Clinical Psychologist Dr. Ari Lakritz is set to talk at the Center as part of the "Surviving Summer Youth Mental Health Series" that is taking throughout the month. On Wednesday, July 10, Lakritz will present his portion on Social Media at 3pm.

Lakritz joined KMOX's Total Information A.M. Tuesday to the discuss the role of social media for kids and says he sees social media brought up as an issue by families in their children's mental well being as early as the age of eight-years-old to early twenties constanstly.

"There is far, far too much exposure to their friends lives to different things happening around the world," said Lakritz. "Tremendously, tremendously, too much exposure to anxiety provoking things such as the latest party that they were not invited to the latest fashion trend that maybe their families cannot afford. Things like that."

Lakritz says especially when it comes to younger children, social media is an addiction that can really edge out a lot of their much more healthy in person activities."

"When you think about addiction to something like a substance you think about, am I using this substance too much? Is it starting to take over my life? Is it starting to have major negative effects?," said Lakritz. "I'm seeing this more and more and unfortunately, with younger and younger children."

Lakritz says there are ways for families to balance social media to help their kids mental health and fight the addiction, such as parents resisting giving kids smartphones before high school, allowing them to use social media before turning 16-years-old, no use phones in schools at all, and letting their kids have more unsupervised play and childhood independence.

"What all this heavy exposure social media is doing is again edging out many of the the formative childhood experiences that certainly someone even as young as myself had in before the advent of social media," said Lakritz. "In person parties, more sports, more hobbies, traditional hobbies. It is all being slowly, slowly taken over and replaced with just excessive consumption of social media content and a family that willing to put in one or more of these reforms or community, they can really see tremendous benefit for their Children."

Lakritz also recommended parents to read " The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness " by Jonathan Heidt where it highlights the ways to help parents balance the use of social media and figure to help ways to improve their kids mental health and fight the addiction of using social media.