Eyes Up Wellness

10/22/2025

If you are not already concerned about AI and children’s wellbeing, you should be. If you are, here’s an opportunity to take some action. Please sign below and please share.

Dear Colleagues,

As some of you may know, I have become very active in my local community and school in helping increase children’s in-person play with each other and in promoting limits on digital device usage.

Recently a new threat to children’s wellbeing has caught my attention: the rise of AI Companions. AI Companions are AI chatbots that are meant to form an emotional relationship with the user, becoming a “friend.” However, these products have been shown to pose a variety of risks to kids.

In short, with social media, Big Tech used their algorithms to hack our attention. Now, with AI companions, they are aiming for something deeper: they’re looking to hack our attachment system.

Tests have shown that these alluring products - now used by over half of teens - have repeatedly failed independent safety testing (https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/pug/csm-ai-risk-assessment-social-ai-companions_final.pdf) when it comes to kids.

Therefore, I've teamed up with an AI developer, Mandy McLean, PhD, who has written on these topics (https://www.afterbabel.com/p/ai-emotional-offloading), to write an Open Letter to congress and governments around the world asking for legislation to regulate AI companions and related products when it comes to kids.

Our aim is to get as many mental health practitioners and researchers to sign as possible. If you are willing and interested, you can do sign here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSciocxSu17k9qxTNhRk_AiFp6Sl-1PMggbgszphgNaKWEY-GQ/viewform?usp=header

Our Open Letter provides information on AI companions, policy recommendations, and has a variety of links to empirical and journalistic sources. I’m also happy to provide more of such science-based information to anyone who is interested.

Please feel free to circulate it widely. Signatures are also accepted from concerned citizens who do not work in the mental health field. Feel free to write to me backchannel with queries about further collaboration if you are interested.

Thank you!
Nate

--
Nathan Thoma, PhD
Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology
Weill Cornell Medical College
Diplomate of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy
Past President, NYC-CBT Association

211 East 43rd St., Suite 1102
New York NY, 10017

347-778-1801
www.nathanthomaphd.com (http://www.nathanthomapsychology.com/)

04/13/2025

🎮📦 Training Alert: Exploring the Risks Behind Collecting & Gaming 📦🎮

Join us on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, from 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM for Forget Sports Betting & Casinos: We Have Card Collecting & Online Games, a powerful virtual training led by Brian Hatch.

Discover how popular hobbies like card collecting and online gaming have evolved into high-risk, unregulated environments that mirror gambling. Learn how community, upselling, and isolation play a role—and why this matters for prevention and support.

✅ Free & open to all
🔗 Register here: https://www.ctclearinghouse.org/registration/forget-sports-betting-casinos-we-have-card-collecting-online-games/

12/15/2024

Ernest Hemingway once said: In our darkest moments, we don’t need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection—a quiet presence, a gentle touch. These small gestures are the anchors that hold us steady when life feels like too much.
Please don’t try to fix me. Don’t take on my pain or push away my shadows. Just sit beside me as I work through my own inner storms. Be the steady hand I can reach for as I find my way.
My pain is mine to carry, my battles mine to face. But your presence reminds me I’m not alone in this vast, sometimes frightening world. It’s a quiet reminder that I am worthy of love, even when I feel broken.
So, in those dark hours when I lose my way, will you just be here? Not as a rescuer, but as a companion. Hold my hand until the dawn arrives, helping me remember my strength.
Your silent support is the most precious gift you can give. It’s a love that helps me remember who I am, even when I forget.~

05/05/2023

What’s Digital Wellness? Some of my favorite definitions:

✅Using technology in ways that enhance our physical, social and emotional health.
✅The optimum state of health and well-being each individual using technology is capable of achieving.
✅A healthy relationship with technology.

On this 4th annual Digital Wellness Day seek digital flourishing and consider how you can best optimize your relationship with technology & those around you. Digital Flourishing wheel brought to you by .

03/25/2023

It's my pleasure to announce a new course for clinicians, developed in partnership with PESI and Nina Hersher: Smartphone Addiction: Clinical Tools for Tech-related Anxiety, Depression and more. Sign up for this day-long immersive seminar next Wednesday, March 29th, and get continuing education credits! Enroll at:

https://lnkd.in/euc9qsgJ

Smartphone and internet overuse can be heavily implicated in anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and stress.

03/27/2022

Listen in as Cam Adair and I talk social media, gaming, gambling and how they are all tied together. Thanks to our gracious host Brian Hatch!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-in-the-addicted-gamblers-podcast/id956747473?i=1000553571923

03/01/2022

Gaming occurs on a continuum, from healthy on one end to harmful on the other end. So where does your gaming fall? 00:00:00 - Intro00:00:39 - The Gaming Cont...

02/06/2022

🚨TW: eating disorders, dieting

Throughout the pandemic, teen eating disorders have surged and now TikTok may be exacerbating it. Experts say that with more time spent in isolation and staring at screens, teens are more susceptible to developing eating disorders.

Over the course of 2021, The Wall Street Journal] created over a 100 fake Instagram accounts to track how TikTok’s algorithm changes between users. Over a dozen of these accounts were registered as 13 year-old users and what they found was a disturbing trend that the TikTok algorithm inundates teens with eating disorder, drug paraphernalia, and explicitly sexual content. The article also highlights the dangers of an unhealthy relationship with TikTok saying, "Some teens said they sometimes felt like they had no control over their TikTok experience. The app sent them into rabbit holes and they couldn’t stop watching, even when they knew it was bad for them."

While TikTok is actively trying to combat the spread of these videos by banning them for violating user guidelines, much more needs to be done to prevent more teens from falling victim to unrealistic body standards and dangerous dieting.

📣🗣 Sound off: Has your mental health been affected by TikTok? Have you seen more content lately that was uncomfortable to watch or promoted unhealthy lifestyle practices? What do you do to prevent TikTok/social media from affecting your mental health?🗣📣

To read the The Wall Street Journal]’s “”The Co**se Bride Diet’: How TikTok Inundates Teens With Eating-Disorder Videos” head to the link 🔗 in our bio.

02/06/2022

Many people use video games as a way to cope with stress and relax. But what if gaming isn't relaxing for you and leads to other issues? Well in this video I...

12/08/2021

My tips for how parents can protect their children and why it is important to do so.

Is social media harming your child?

For many young users, the mental health impacts of social media can be incredibly negative. Here, we teach you how to address these dangers.

https://www.smartkidswithld.org/getting-help/tech-smarts/is-social-media-harming-your-child/