Dr. Anna Lembke

Yeah, we see this quite often.

Kids who, while they're still living at home with the container and the guardrails that parents provide, are able to manage their relationship with technology.

But when they go off to college and all of a sudden those guardrails are gone, some of these kids will very quickly fall into a kind of a 24-7 online, you know, digital habit.

So you're not alone.

You're not alone.

And then if you couple that with a child who's prone to anxiety and depression, what's very clear from the data is that the more time a child spends online consuming digital media, social media, the higher their risk of becoming depressed and anxious.

And if they already have depression and anxiety, that depression and anxiety will get worse.

So we really have a causal phenomenon where the consumption of digital media and social media drives the depression and the anxiety.

This is a really important concept.

back to some of my earlier advice, sitting down with your son, a really transparent discussion about what you're observing that's different from before he went away to college, talking about does he observe the same thing, offering him help.

I mean, if he has depression and anxiety and he's not getting help for that, strongly recommend you hook him up with either a

your own resources for mental health or school.

Most colleges have very good mental health resources.

But I would, you know, again, get in there and not just sort of assume that it's going to get better naturally on its own.

And Kelly, the reason that I would especially emphasize this is because

Oprah, we do see some kids who when they go off to college and all of a sudden are surrounded by the wonderful opportunities and the new friend groups, they actually get off their devices.

They're on their devices less, right?

College becomes this kind of opening to the world.

But if your child is, if they're having the opposite experience, I think you, you know, the alarm bells should be ringing and you should really be thinking about, oh, wow, you know,

How can we help?