Psychology Today: Kathleen Mackenzie (MSW’92) Encourages Parents to Identify Signs of Electronic Addictions in Children
As electronics become more and more pervasive in our everyday life, parents can monitor addiction to electronics by noting patterns of overuse related to video games, social media, and online pornography. In an article for Psychology Today, alum Kathleen Mackenzie (MSW’92) urges parents to reconsider children’s relationships with electronics. Mackenzie explains that parents can protect their children’s mental health by enforcing certain harm reduction strategies, like controlling the amount of time they spend on electronics.
Excerpt from “Can’t Pry Your Kids Away from Electronics?: Small changes can make a big difference.” by Kathleen Mackenzie, originally posted in Psychology Today:
Evidence that kids are drowning in electronics seems to hit us in the face at every corner store, restaurant, and empty playground across the country. Perhaps even more alarming are my recent conversations with the director of a local crisis center, who reports seeing an increasing number of youths in crisis in response to an adult removing their access to electronics. Despite these troubling trends, or perhaps because the problem seems too big to tackle, we have been slow to recognize the link between what one could argue is a generation, or two, of kids consumed by electronics and our current national youth mental health crisis…
How can parents teach children to manage their own electronic use, or the use of any other ‘feel-good’ substance or activity that can lead to problematic overuse? These harm reduction strategies are a good place to start:
Reduce exposure. Consider reducing time on social media from daily to every other day or every three days.”