locating a community
In addition, families that have been upended by their kids’ usage of social media are banding together to discover a feeling of belonging.
In 2021, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, mother Sabine Polak made her first public remarks regarding her daughter’s battle with social media addiction. She disclosed that her 14-year-old daughter was dealing with depression and had considered suicide in an interview with CNN at the time. Following an intervention with her school counselor, the adolescent eventually received treatment at a rehab facility and has improved greatly, according to Polak.
But Polak’s life’s course was altered at that time. Mileva Repasky, a mother from her community, got in touch after seeing about Polak’s tale on CNN. Her son similarly battled addiction to social media.
Even with that unexpected call from the counselor, “it brought her to tears because she was going through something so eerily similar with her teenage son,” according to Polak. “Neither of us could believe that our children attended the same school district and that we lived in the same neighborhood.”
Eventually, they started a nonprofit organization known as the Phone-Free Schools Movement, which works with administrators to support schools in limiting or outlawing phone use during school hours so that kids can unplug, concentrate on their studies, and reduce distractions like cheating and cyberbullying.
“We are getting a lot of messages from administrators asking for resources on how to implement a phone-free policy, and from parents hoping to start a movement in their own schools,” Polak stated.