SPEAKER: S1 I'm Amanda, and I'm Far. Welcome to Alone Together. On this podcast, we'll be talking about things related to mental health for Gentiles, but especially the harmful influences of social media. We're hoping to create a comfortable space so listeners know that it's okay not to be okay. For those of you who feel alone, let's come together. Before we dive into our podcast series, we want to remind our audience that we strive to be transparent and we also know that we're not in any way mental health professionals. By no means are we trying to give advice on mental health. Our goal is to talk about issues and create a space where teens can feel comfortable about what they're going through and understand that everybody deals with mental health issues differently. What works for one person isn't going to work for someone else. And in this podcast, we'll talk more about this. Social media can be great for many things, but it can also produce what we would call harmful societal standards. I agree. Some of these standards that I've seen on Instagram and other social media platforms is this idea of how you'll only be happy in a relationship, or if you have money or if you're fit and good looking. I've also seen social media promote this idea of romanticizing your life. For me, at first I enjoyed watching these tiktoks of the Clean Girl aesthetic or the city life aesthetic tiktoks of people having their lives together. At first I was encouraged to also want a life like this, but later on it actually impacted my mental health negatively when I couldn't fulfill these type of lifestyles. It actually made me overwhelmed in my ability to be productive. It was lost or even getting up in the morning was hard. I think it then becomes challenging for some because the watch these videos and it's like, hey, my life doesn't look like that. And now I'm upset that it doesn't. I've seen those tick talks and that trend of being a clean girl, and it's hard to relate to because the reality of my life is nothing like that. Honestly, I don't do my bed every morning or saw my hair every day. Sometimes I wear the same clothes more than once and I won't get out of bed until 12 in the afternoon some days. Yeah. I feel like that's the reality of many people's stories. This idea of being a clean girl to be beautiful, I feel like it's very damaging because we're human. We're not always clean or the clean that they portray with their million dollar skincare routines. The whole beauty standard thing is really upsetting, especially for young girls. We're seeing now, really young kids on social media, which means they're likely being exposed to stuff like this all the time. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, in 2020, the rate of hospitalizations for eating disorders was 1.6 times higher than the year before, and one of the suspected causes was actually social media exposure. This needs more awareness, especially since in the 2018 Canadian Internet Use survey, it was found that 53.3% of Canadians aged between 15 and 19 use three or more social media apps. This concerns me because I'm wondering what exactly are they looking at? This brings us to the focus of this podcast. Today, we'll be talking more about social media and its impact on teenage mental health with York region therapist Karen Sylvester. Karen has worked in the field for many years, working closely with children, teenagers and adults. SPEAKER: S2 So basically, I mean, I've been therapists for a really long time, and in my private office I kind of work with young people, teens, university students, adults. So I'm much more diverse. SPEAKER: S3 Getting into like standards. There is this idea of being wealthy or being successful at certain periods of your adolescence. Like, for example, personally, I was expected to get my driver's license by 16 or 17 years of age, and now I'm 20 and I don't have it, which makes me feel like a failure, just like, I don't know, I guess like this idea of like, you should have your driver's license by 16 or something and everyone keeps pushing it. And because, like family members all around me always ask me, like, when are you getting your license on your license? I keep pushing it back with this idea. I wanted to ask, what do you think needs to change with the societal expectations of youth? SPEAKER: S2 Typically, as a therapist, when I am working with teens and they're not learning how to drive to me as a therapist, it's not just about why they're not driving. Is it because they have anxiety to drive? Why can't they drive? But I also think that it's important kind of step out of our comfort zone a little bit. It's important to kind of understand why we're not driving or why we're not getting a job. And if it's anchored in anxiety, then it's important again to work through that to allow us to achieve. SPEAKER: S3 And how do you think the societal pressures impact that development? SPEAKER: S2 Well, I think it depends. I don't know if it's always societal pressures compared to family pressures. Most of the teens that I work with, I wouldn't say that they're feeling that's just me. It doesn't mean that that is a disclaimer, right? It doesn't mean that that's how all teens are feeling. But again, that doesn't mean the societal pressures aren't happening. Sorry, Amanda. No, no. What I've kind of gone through. Yeah. SPEAKER: S3 I just wanted to kind of track back to what you said about how everyone's experience is different, because that is another kind of topic that we're also discussing in this podcast kind of going over. Like everyone experiences things differently and what might be something small or something huge. It's different to everybody. So I kind of, yeah, I like that you talked about that. We're going to go over a bit more of that as well. Yeah. So I just wanted to come back and say like. When it does come to that family pressure or the societal pressures affecting that adolescent, what do you think they need to remember about their individual growth rate of transition between themselves? Yeah. SPEAKER: S2 Well, I think it is about kind of figuring out in a way what is preventing us from kind of going through the the regular phases of life. And I and I do think it's kind of, you know, a lot of times when I mean, we're talking about driving in particular, a lot of teens I work with are nervous to order something for themselves that's important. They're nervous to go drive for themselves. I think, you know, it's it's okay to kind of know what our pace is. But I suppose as a therapist, I think about it in a bit of a different way to kind of understand our discomfort. Part of my job is to allow students that I work with to sit in a bit of that discomfort and try to push through some of the things that are making them so nervous to do. So it really depends on I feel like it's a big question because it depends on what what is getting in the way of them. Kind of do they want to learn how to drive? Do they want to learn how to do it? Our parents, if they don't learn how to do things or are they okay? Do they live in the city compared to the suburbs where they can get on TTC compared to needing to drive everywhere up in York region? So I think it's a it's a big question, right, with lots of different answers. SPEAKER: S3 I also it's so funny because I remember being super young and I would beg my parents to take me through the drive through. I never, ever wanted to sit inside restaurants like fast food because I think I was always scared of like the big kids or that they were like laughing at me or something. And it's so funny because sometimes I still think that way and now I'm the big kid. So it's, it's just funny because, yeah, that's something that I can actually relate to. SPEAKER: S2 Well, with anxiety, if we talk about just anxiety, it does come and go. You know, if we have like a lot of the people I work with certainly have. I know what we're talking about social media, but definitely have my expertise is more in anxiety and OCD are the two biggest things that I work with. And so part of therapy and part of me being a therapist and may be different than other therapists is I have a firm belief that everyone can sit in their own discomfort of learning something. It might kind of go back and forth sometimes, but when we're not doing things like driving or whatever else, it kind of teaches us that we're not capable of doing it right. So anxiety, no matter if it's about social media or about whatever kind of strips away our ability to have confidence in ourselves. So as a therapist, it's my job to kind of push that along a little bit, right? And get them to sit in discomfort. And, you know, it's kind of what I do with most of my teens is get them to sit in. And that's why I'm I'm successful a lot of the time. Because if we don't learn how to sit in discomfort and that even means not being on social media as much. And I know we're going to get to the social media piece, then we can Oh, if I ask even my little ones who may be afraid of the dark. Do you want to work on this? A lot of times I'm going to hear no, because it just feels too scary. We have to be able to challenge our thoughts a little bit and know that it is just our thoughts and we can have an anxious thought, but do an action that's completely different because I can't always get rid of the thoughts, but we can always work on the action. SPEAKER: S3 Yeah, I just never thought of it like, Oh, this is like for example, personally, without my driver's license, getting my driver's license, I never thought of it as, like, discomfort. But I remember, like, I always blame it on, like, anxiety, maybe have anxiety. But then I remember going to the doctors and the doctors, like, you don't have anxiety. So then I always think, like, what is going on? Why can't I do it? Maybe it's just I'm lazy or there's something. So I kind of like makes me think like, what about driving? Makes me uncomfortable? SPEAKER: S2 Well, I think if there's discomfort, there's usually a fear about it, right? I don't know. Use I can't diagnose you. I can't say you have anxiety or whatnot. But for any of us, if there's a discomfort doing things, it's typically anchored in a fear. If I have a discomfort of going to a new yoga class, going to you guys are in university. When I went away to university, first time, it was, you know, mind blowing. And I didn't you know, you're kind of in your room and you don't know a lot of people and it's overwhelming. There's a fear about things, but doesn't mean that you have anxiety with everything. We have bits and pieces of anxiety that prevent us, but any time it's preventing us, it's usually anchored in a fear which is usually anchored in distorted thoughts that something is going to happen when I drive. And oftentimes I will say to the teens, there's really nothing different between you learning how to drive at 16 and me learning how to drive, even though we're different errors. Driving is driving is driving. Right. And so if we're not driving or not ordering or not doing, I'm pretty sure it's likely anchored in a bit of fear. SPEAKER: S3 So coming back to this idea of avoidance, which I think can even relate back to the idea of there's not enough conversations happening about teenage mental health specifically. And there's this stat about 70% of mental health concerns originate from childhood or adolescence. And then these issues, when they go untreated, are carried into adulthood. So I just want to ask, what do you suggest teens do when they notice they're experiencing mental health issues or even those who notice their friends experiencing mental health issues? Well, I mean, I. SPEAKER: S2 Think it's a lot. You know, even at the hospital, I worked there for 16 years. So I think nowadays there is parents are a little bit more in tune with their children's mental health than others. I think it depends on culturally where we are from, kind of, you know, there are lots of cultures, there are still still a stigma attached. I do think teens are a little bit more mindful of their mental health now with social media. I mean, I know we're talking about the negative things about social media, but sometimes there are positive things when you have other kids talking about the same stuff. So then it's about who do you feel that you can first connect to? If you are experience mental health, sometimes it's your parents, and if it's not your parents, it's your guidance counselor. And if it's not your guidance counselor, it's your teacher or your doctor or your pastor or or whomever, you know, sometimes it can be an older sibling. And I think it's the same with our friends if we're noticing it's that fine line of how much do we take on as their friend, because it can feel overwhelming and how much can we guide them to. Maybe I feel like a lot of teens end up coming to see me because they ask to go to see their own doctor or they talk to a guidance counselor or the principal. So there's always even nowadays or social workers in schools, there's mental health nurses in schools. I do think there are there's still a stigma, but I feel it's a much better than it was even a decade ago. SPEAKER: S3 Yeah. Yeah. On like a track of progress. Anyways, I think the only thing is, which I remember in high school, which wasn't too long ago, social media was a huge issue, especially for me because I was exposed to it a lot younger and I had it a lot younger and I saw a lot of things that I shouldn't have and exposed to a lot of ideas that I wasn't old enough to kind of understand. And so what we're going to talk about is those harmful. Beauty standards, wealth, standard success standards that are generated on social media. Yeah. So beauty standards have been shown to harmfully impact many youth mental health. So my question is like, what are examples you have seen in your career of how social media has affected the mental wellbeing of youth? SPEAKER: S2 Well, I think in general, with a lot of teens that I work with, primarily girls, not always girls, boys too. There's lots of things that again, can be really amazing about social media, like you guys are university students. So I've had university students meet the roommates because they're on Instagram and they have these private class of 2025. So that is amazing. You're right. I think a lot of parents, you know, I would say probably 80 to 90% of the parents that I work with are having arguments with their with their children about social media, how much they're on their tablets, all of that kind of stuff. And I think as a parent, it's like what age seems appropriate? So you wait longer than the kids feel left out because all of their friends are on Instagram and Snapchat. You allow them on it and then they're kind of constantly on it. So if someone so say for you, Amanda, if you are already feeling a little bit anxious about certain things and then, you know, we're too young to understand Photoshopping and all of that kind of stuff that impacts social media. And we know when we're getting likes, it's like dopamine being it's like being a gambler and you're getting those ding ding things, those like one of the big things. You know, when I was a kid or your parents were kids, if we weren't invited to a party, we may not have ever known. Nowadays, if you're invited to a party, there's much more ability to exclude other other people and exclude teens. And I think that can really be detrimental to their mental health. Feeling left out, feeling like they're being disconnected, you know, not having this face to face with your friends anymore, which leads to lack of empathy, lack of compassion, lack of social skills, skills, not being able to read social cues. I think it is definitely I hear about the body image stuff. I'm not as thin, I'm not as pretty. And it goes into I'm also being excluded, not invited. My friends are leaving me. They're more popular. So it's it's this wide range of complaints that I hear, but it's very hard for them not to be on it. It's very hard for them not to check it when they wake up, not to check it before they go to bed and not to be scrolling. It's a way of avoiding our schoolwork sometimes if we're feeling anxious, it's a way of avoiding our feelings, if we're feeling anxious or depressed. So there's good things about it and there's tough things about it. SPEAKER: S3 Yeah, it's so accessible and everything is broadcasted on. Yeah, everything's broadcasted online. So I can definitely see that idea of exclusion. SPEAKER: S2 Well, I think everybody's an expert about everything, right? You know, everybody is an expert about mental health and what you should do and about vitamins and nutrition and exercise. And, you know, it's we're living in the world of influencers per se, that look a certain way that have to have this content a certain way. And if I'm young and I'm absorbing all of that, if I'm already kind of feeling a little bit fragile with my mental health and fragile because of lots of other things, watching social media and not having as many likes or friends or whatever is, it can certainly have a negative impact on our life. SPEAKER: S3 Yeah, like I remember in elementary school where my friend group was excluded from a birthday party, we were not invited to a birthday party and it was actually the girl's birthday. We were close friends with her and it was just like I was not that type of kid to be like, really sad about those things. But I definitely think it did impact my self image when it came to why I asked all the times. It could have been because of the way I look or where I come from and those things just like visual things. Because you're an elementary student, you're looking at things like that. So I feel like that impacts adolescence. And what do you think? How do you think that goes on to adulthood and like the unconscious, kind of like coming back to and reflecting those things. How do you think that emotionally impacts adolescents? SPEAKER: S2 Well, I think when there's any kind of exclusion or bullying or whatever, we want to, you know, a lot of adults that I work with, again, this is not saying everybody, so I want to make sure that we're not generalizing, but many people that I work with can still worry about being left out and still kind of have their, you know, their guard up. It can cause trust issues. We're worrying about things we don't want to share ourselves. We either share ourselves too much or too little. So it definitely can kind of and I and again, I think it depends on, you know, of course, most of the teens that I see are already struggling with something. That's what I do, right? If I work in mental health, you know, most young people that I work with are going to have their struggles. So if we already have our struggles and then we add to it, you know, with social media, with anything, it's going to make it worse. My hope is that with their. People can. One of the things that I try to teach my young people and my students is to try not to own other people's bad behavior. So if I'm not inviting you to a party, then why are we saying it's about you? And when we're a teenager? I understand. I'm not anymore. You know, it's really hard to rationalize that, right? When you see that's the hard part about, I think, beauty standards. Yes. But feeling that exclusion, to me, they're almost equal about the harm of social media. We either feel incredibly included or incredibly excluded. Then you're right. Then we start kind of looking at ourselves and trying to improve ourselves and looking at our bodies. And why can I look like that? Not knowing like you can take 100 pictures before you put one up on social media, right? SPEAKER: S3 So just to get into like some recommendations that you suggest. So we recognize about six in ten teens use Instagram and Snapchat. Those are some major the two, I would say one of the two most major. SPEAKER: S2 I think TikTok nowadays, too. SPEAKER: S3 Probably TikTok too. Yeah, it's huge. So what do you suggest teenagers do when they begin to notice Feelings of anxious, anxiousness, envy, and even depression went on social media. And this is going beyond just shutting off the phone. Sometimes it's hard, right, because it's an outlet for distraction. SPEAKER: S2 Yeah, well, I think it's kind of having that understanding of why it's an outlet. And as simplistic as this sounds, what I try to tell my teens is so rather than trying to say, you know, just take things away, because for most of us it's really hard. If you are saying, you know, when I was a kid, take your TV away or whatever, but it's about trying to stack your life with other things. Can I if you're a teenager and you're old enough, can I go to work? Can I volunteer? Can I play sports? Can I be involved in musical theater? It's trying to stock your life with other things rather than just allowing it to be one thing. You know, one of the things that I find a big difference and I do think it's because when I was growing up a thousand years ago, there was no social media or phones. We did have those contacts. I couldn't wait to get out with my friends on the weekend. We were going to parties. You don't have to do that anymore. You can face time, you can be on social media, you can hide, you can even the boys, you know, playing their video games can chat with their friends. So we're losing the ability to make eye contact with. So how do we read social cues? I can a little bit. I can tell when my kids are struggling. But you know, when you're growing up and through COVID and missing two years of that, you need to work. You need to learn how to drive. You need to do things that kind of make us really uncomfortable. So if you add to your life rather than feeling I need to take kind of social media away, it allows you to facilitate some of that self esteem, right? If I learn how to drive, I have a student who just got her first job in grade 12 and she's feeling amazing because school hasn't always been great for her and feeling excluded. So now she's working somewhere. So if you stack your life with other things to incorporate more than just social media, I think that's the best advice I can give you. Rather than feeling like you need to take it away all the time, certainly limit it if you can, but if we can't, if you're at work, you can't be on social media, we hope, Right? SPEAKER: S3 True. So this idea of like stacking things, I understand that like 100%. Like for example, personally, for me, like I started going to work not because I needed money, but like more because like mental health, like I needed to go out of the house, do something for myself. But there's also like going to something more specific. This idea like social media puts is like, puts this idea of like having a relationship at a young age with like, you know, romantic relationships. And I see it all over TikTok. Everyone is like, you need to have a relationship by this date, especially when you're a teenager going to high school, like everyone's looking for a relationship. And I just wanted to ask, how do you think the expectation of being in a relationship affects youth on top of dealing with other aspects of their life, like school and their social life? SPEAKER: S2 Well, I guess all I can say from all I can do is from the work that I do, I, I would say a quarter of the young people that I work with are in relationships. But a lot of times when I'm asking the youth in high school, have you data, do you know who you want to date? You like girls, boys, whatever. A lot of times it's like they're they're not really as interested in dating. And maybe you are seeing something different being younger, being on social media compared to me, right? I'm not in university, I'm not on TikTok, so I'm not infiltrated with that kind of stuff. Know, again, it's it's kind of if parents if you have someone who 13 or 14 and you know, they're they're on social media too much. I think as a parent you have to reduce the amount. But I also think when you're young, you can certainly you know, when the kids are coming to see me, it is trying to anchor ourselves in what is what is the truth about things rather than what social media. To challenge our thoughts a little bit. And it still is about stacking our life with different things. I have a lot of young people who go to art class and swimming class. I'm learning how to be lifeguards. If we just allow our life to be kind of social media and that's again, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but for the young people that I work with, they usually have a million other things on the go, right? So I can't answer that 100% about dating because I'm not seeing that in my practice as much. There is a little bit of pressure, but most of my youth, it's really more about that exclusion and beauty standards, I would say more than there might be other therapists who feel a little bit different or who kind of work in that age group that their kids are feeling a little bit more pressure to date. But I haven't I haven't had that as much. SPEAKER: S3 I remember in high school there was this like I remember there being kind of like competitions on who would have like their first kiss or different kind of sexual. SPEAKER: S2 I think that's Amanda. It's been going on since the dawn of time, to be honest. SPEAKER: S3 And so at least for me, there was this whole, yeah, pressure to find a boyfriend and pressure to just be with someone regardless of how poorly they treated you. Because a lot of the times you're young, you don't really know, you know. SPEAKER: S2 I also think that is anchored in our own self esteem sometimes, right? So if we a lot of times when I'm working with young people, it is about knowing your own value in life. So what is my value? What is bringing meaning to me? Even if I have a ten year old, I'm talking maybe not in those exact words, but I think even when we're dating and you know, some young people that I've worked with when they're in so say, those really formative years or those latencies before they hit high school, some feel like their friends are too or crazy girl crazy and they're not they're developmental yet. You know if you're needing that validation from the opposite sex or from same sex or whatever, then it goes a little bit deeper than that, right? So I think sometimes when we need that validation, we do tend to sometimes want the people to like us, whether or not it's romantically or friends. So social media, I think, doesn't always create things, but it certainly amplifies them and magnifies them and makes it a million times worse. SPEAKER: S3 Because even what I've seen on TikTok recently or I mean, whenever I see a video of like a couple and it's gone viral, the comments are concerning. People are like talking about how in different ways, like they want to essentially kill themselves because of what they're seeing. I know that most of the time it's sad. They don't mean it, you know? SPEAKER: S2 And I think, you know, we saw that young couple in the US that was traveling in a van and the really terrible but on the on the outside it looks amazing. And I feel like that's the hard part about social media. Again, I don't want to slam everything because they're really let's say you guys didn't know each other before university and you met online and social media and people are meeting so many kids at university and that kind of stuff and that kind of stuff is amazing, can spread good things. However, you know, it is even when people started on Facebook, you know, you don't post up my life as crappy, right? I've had certainly really young, young ladies and I have one later on today who was cyberbullying and they're ten and 11. It's just very incredibly sad. Right? SPEAKER: S3 It can be cruel. SPEAKER: S2 It can be very cruel. I mean, and I think that's when any new thing comes, you know, social media is here to stay. So then how do we kind of manage it and how do we make sure that people are kind of feeling healthy in it? And I've had even teenagers who had breakups and I hear I'm not on TikTok or anything, but they're saying things. If you if you have a theme, it kind of bombards you. And she had to delete it after a while because it was too much sadness for her. SPEAKER: S3 Yeah. SPEAKER: S2 Right. It was like this person and that person. And I hear that more about Tik Tok than other ones. Again, I'm not as familiar with Tik Tok and all the nuances of it, but if you're if you're not feeling strong enough to kind of get out of it, then you do need to add other things to your life to kind of, you know, make our strengths come out rather than feeling like we're we're exactly the same. The good news, I guess, is that people are trying to do more of that body positivity stuff on on social media compared to perhaps what they did four or five years ago. SPEAKER: S3 That's true. Yeah. And I've recently seen on social media that there's this big trend of romanticizing your life. And always the question in my head was like, is this trend benefiting me? Because in the beginning I was like, Oh yeah, this is so cool. Like I'm going to do these things. But I felt like it was harming me on those days that I couldn't get out of bed. So I just wanted to ask, What do you think happens to adolescent mental health when youth are unable to follow or create a lifestyle that is similar to people online? SPEAKER: S2 Well, I think it can be very destructive. Kind of like everything else that we're talking about. It's definitely romanticized. It can make us even adults get stuck in that. You know, even adults can get caught into comparisons. So sometimes it is about and I know when you're an adolescent by yourself, if you're not in therapy, if you're not kind of doing things, it is about trying to lean into your own life a little bit rather than, you know, kind of compare ourselves to everybody else, which is incredibly hard at 15 and 16. I understand. And though, you know, if you are feeling that depressed, if you are, I would certainly recommend, again, talking to your parents, talking to your doctor, talking to your guidance counselor, because if social media is having that much of a negative impact on your mental health, then there's likely other things underneath it that need to be addressed, not just the social media usage. And so you've got to kind of figure out what is it that is kind of making me feel worse about this. Likely the issues are underneath a little bit anyway and making us feel more lonely, making us feel more anxious. SPEAKER: S3 Yeah. And like, you're not going to feel great every day. So how do you keep from getting discouraged when experiencing a bad day, when you're actually going through that day? SPEAKER: S2 So one of the things that I really try to teach anyone that I work with and that I try to practice myself is that we have bad days. You know, sometimes I feel in mental health. A lot of my students will say, Oh, I had a really bad day. And it's like, okay, yeah, you've had a bad day, but you also had six amazing days. So in life we can kind of do two things at one time. You guys can be having a bad day today, but you're still having to focus on this podcast with me. I can be having a bad day, but I'm still here. So in life it doesn't have to be one or the other. And so part of it is learning, you know, depending on how bad your day is, if you're having multiple bad days, again, I would encourage you to seek out some support. But if you're having a bad day, can we have that bad day? Acknowledge that we're having that bad day and kind of get on with life, Right. So we can't. One of the things I've learned after many years of being a therapist is that I'm not a magician. I can't get rid of bad thoughts and anxious thoughts. All we can do is work on the habit. So if my habit is I'm on social media too much, can I take that down a notch? It doesn't always have to be all or nothing. Right. Can I take it down a notch? A little bit? Can I add more things into my life if I'm having a bad day? Can I get up and take a shower and make sure that I'm eating well and maybe go for a walk? And I know they sound very simplistic, but life doesn't have to be so complicated. And I think nowadays we we kind of feel like because we want that instant gratification that can come with feeling better. So I feel bad and now I want to feel better. But sometimes we just have to go through the motions of life that brings us to the other side. So if you're having a bad day, have it. Acknowledge that you're having a crap day but still try to just get on with. When I say get on with life, I'm not minimizing it, but I'm just saying you can do two things at one time. You can feel anxious, but still learn how to drive. You can feel anxious but still order a drive through. You just have to kind of put up with those uncomfortable feelings. So my biggest work with students is learning how to sit in discomfort and getting to the other side of it. And that's the biggest lesson I can try to give you guys. SPEAKER: S3 All right. SPEAKER: S1 Well, I think that's about all. SPEAKER: S3 We wanted to kind of go over. And we really appreciate your advice from your experience in the field. And Yeah, thank you so much again for coming everyone. SPEAKER: S1 So, Amanda, what did you take away from this interview? SPEAKER: S2 I thought it was a really great conversation that we had with Karen. And what really stuck with me was how people are always kind of broadcasting what's going on, whether that be going to parties or doing things where others might not be invited, and just kids having to go through seeing that and kind of experiencing feelings of exclusion. SPEAKER: S1 Yeah, I really related to that. Also, that idea of discomfort when it comes to expectations. Like I brought up my driver's license and that just like gave me so much peace that it's not like about anxiety or other mental issues, but it could just be that I'm just like, uncomfortable with something. And I realize that it's probably I have a fear of failure more than other things. SPEAKER: S2 I mean, we also mentioned we also talked about how, yeah, that whole idea of having discomfort in things and not wanting to do things, and then it goes back to the whole idea of avoidance. And I even brought up the whole thing about not wanting to eat in restaurants and always wanting to go through the drive through. And I still have issues with ordering and placing orders, and I have to ask my sister to do it or my friends. So yeah, it all comes down to kind of having a fear. SPEAKER: S1 Yeah, I think like it's just acknowledging our problems and the things we face on a daily basis and just seeing like, where does this actually come from? And just talking about it, making a, making it a comfortable like discussion. SPEAKER: S2 I feel like it would help all of us and even with social media in regards to social media usage and you know, a lot of teenagers and even adults and children now, those that are exposed to social media and on the platforms, it's not going to go away. And it's hard for it to go away because we talked about it being an outlet and a distraction. And I'm on my phone all the time. So it's something that I need and it's something that I use to get away from things. So rather than, you know, deleting social media and not using that or talking to people or connecting to people online, Karen suggested, just kind of finding the good in it and recognizing the good in it, which can be, yeah, talking to people and talking about these issues and what is making you upset. So I really appreciate that advice because yeah, social media is not going to go away and it's growing. SPEAKER: S1 Yeah, I feel like instead of using social media as a way of avoidance, we can start using it like how we are talking about things that are uncomfortable to talk about, but opening up the floor for that and just talking about that everyday kind of issues and problems we face. I feel like it will help us a lot and that was just like a great conversation we had with Karen. SPEAKER: S2 That's a wrap on this week's episode. Thank you for listening to Alone Together. We are your hosts, Amanda and Farr. We want to remind you that it's okay not to be okay. SPEAKER: S1 We know this is hard stuff to talk about. We hope this episode has helped you if you're feeling alone. SPEAKER: S2 But please, if you need help or are in crisis, you can contact kids. Help phone at one 800 6686868 or talk Suicide Canada at 18334564566.