Director of “The Social Dilemma” visits Naples to speak about social media and mental health impacts

The director of Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” Jeff Orlowski, visited Naples for the first time Saturday. The reason was an important one: to talk about childrens’ mental health.

Specifically, how their mental health is impacted by social media use.

“That simple, simple desire and demand for social media companies leads them to testing all sorts of content on all of us to see what gets us to come back, Orlowski said.

Lee Health psychologist Dr. Jason Sabo said this is not good for your children.

“What I see in my practice is a lot of kids who are addicted to social media, they have a difficult time putting that down, putting the phone down. And so that becomes their security blanket and becomes their reinforcement. And so unfortunately, now they’re stepping away from other activities and things that they used to previously do,” Sabo said.

After Naples parents James and Ahsley Schlimmer watched his documentary, they partnered with Kids Minds Matter, a group of advocates for mental health in Southwest Florida, to get his word out to their community.

One attendee was principal and teacher Loi Green.

She sees the impacts on her students constantly.

“They’re in the bathroom, on their telephone, they’re sneaking out of classroom to get on their telephone, and I think the fact that they now kind of understand that they’re being they’re like puppets on a string makes a big difference,” she said.

Parents Steven and Danielle Krivda brought their sons to the discussion, and they are glad they did.

“That used to bug me a lot with a screen time limit. And before that, I can understand why they put it in there. Because as soon as we get home, I’d have like five missing assignments. And I’d be on my Ipad,” their son, Tyler Krivda, said.

He is in middle school, and he has an older brother Andrew Krivda in high school.Their outlook on social media is a bit different.

“I can’t have that sometimes. And I feel left out. But I know it’s for like my good. And I have to keep that rolling in my head,” Andrew Krivda said.

Just within Golisano Children’s Hospital, there was a 235% increase in the number of Baker acts from 2020 to 2021, and a 10% increase from 2021 to 2022.

We see this trend nationally as well.

Both Dr. Sabo and Jeff Orlowski said social media is a major factor.