A voice in the community is trying to tackle phone addiction through an event located at The Family Center in Grosse Pointe.

The event on May 17 at 7 p.m. is titled Teens and Screens: A solution-focused conversation. The event is being held to help students and parents learn to detach from their devices and face the world with a little less anxiety and become notably less stressed.

“I see a lot of adolescents and teens in this practice and I was noticing a trend that I could relate back to the screens,” the events speaker, Nicole Runyon said.

According to Runyon, a lot of her patients have had problems with device use that could lead to significant behavior changes.

“There’s a lot of anxiety and depression, there’s some cutting, some addictive behaviors so I did some research and I presented it back in September,” Runyon said. “This talk coming up is about solutions.”

Too much screen time can lead to pretty horrific side effects and though she recognizes them she wants to better the teens and parents at her event by focusing on how to solve the problems associated with too much screen time, according to Runyon.  

“I suggest that if parents want to stay in touch with their kids during the day, people don’t like to here his but my recommendation is to get them a flip phone before their high school age,” Runyon said.

According to Runyon, this example is one of the many insightful solutions she will be presenting at the event. 

“What I found was that people were so very confused about what to do and we needed more of a discussion about a solution so this talk is solution focused and it’s going to  be more of a discussion” Runyon said.