Meet the Mother Who's Fighting Back Against Media Addiction
Julie Scelfo, award-winning journalist and founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction, will bring her big ideas to a SPAC luncheon on October 22. Plus, our fashion editor's latest Fit Check feature.
We don’t typically report on middle-of-the-weekday guest speaker talks about heavy topics like adolescent depression in Saratoga Living After Hours. But given the fact that doom-scrolling has become one of America’s favorite after-hours pastimes, we figured Julie Scelfo’s upcoming SPAC in Conversation event was worthy of closer look.
A former New York Times reporter who covered youth mental health and suicide, Julie is the founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA), an organization with 35 chapters in 22 states (including an Albany chapter) that she describes as a grassroots movement of parents and allies that are fighting back against media addiction and creating a world where real-life experiences and interactions remain at the heart of a healthy childhood.
“Everyone knew we had a problem,” Julie says of her decision to start MAMA in 2023. “There’s no parent who doesn’t think about this issue, because we’ve all seen when kids get together to play and they’re all looking down and not talking. But it was hard for parents to find the language to talk about what was happening.”
MAMA gives parents that language, beginning with cold-hard stats on the problem at hand: The average teen spends 4.8 hours on social media each day. One in three teens report that they use social media almost constantly. Most teens receive more than 237 notifications on their phone per day.
All those hours spent looking at a screen are having an impact. Kids’ attention spans are far more prone to fragmentation than they were in previous generations, making learning more difficult. Kids are more depressed than ever before, with 2.7 million youth currently experiencing depression, and 30 percent of teen girls having seriously considered attempting suicide. And by being on their phones so much, kids are missing out on vitally important activities such as sleep, play, and learning how to navigate in-person relationships. That’s all not to mention the fact that social media is essentially the Wild West, devoid of safeguards to prevent kids from seeing potentially harmful content like porn and AI slop.
“When you go buy a toy a the toy store, if it said on the label that this toy has a three in 10 chance of making your child depressed, a two in 10 chance of giving your child an eating disorder, or a one in 10 chance of making them suicidal, no parent would buy that toy,” Julie says. “But until now, social media hasn’t had any warning labels.”
Worse yet is the reason these technologies don’t have warning labels. Despite the overwhelming evidence that social media is harming today’s young people, lawmakers have been slow to enact safeguards, largely because they’re beholden to the tech lobby, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to stop legislation that would limit access to their services. Services—might I add—that are intentionally designed to be addictive.
It’s certainly a bleak picture. But Julie says the point of her October 22 appearance at SPAC isn’t to harp on the problems kids and parents today are facing: It’s to give parents the tools to combat media addiction and celebrate what’s already been achieved—including last month’s implementation of a state-wide, bell-to-bell ban on smartphones in schools.
“For too long, many of us thought there was nothing we could do and that we had to accept this as the new normal,” Julie says. “But what we’ve learned just in our first year and a half of existence is that change is possible. And it’s actually happening.”
—Natalie
Fit Check
Speaking of non-musical SPAC events, Saratoga Living Fashion Editor Tiina Loite was in attendance at the organization’s first CulinaryArts@SPAC event of the season a few nights ago, and spotted a look worth talking about.
While I was roaming around checking out the appetizers being served outside the Pines building at this week’s Project Griddle event, I crossed paths with Kristy Ventre, VP of communications for SPAC. She was wearing an eye-catching maxi dress by Farm Rio.
Farm Rio, which was started by two friends in 1997 in Rio de Janeiro, has exploded in popularity in the last five years or so. Known for their vibrant, colorful, intricate designs that make one pause for a moment and admire the creativity, the clothing line is now carried by sites such as Net-a-Porter, Farfetch, Shopbop, Anthropologie, and Nordstrom.
Tiina Loite: Your job requires attending many SPAC events. Do you normally like to wear one ensemble to go through a day at the office followed by an evening at an event?
Kristy Ventre: I love going day to night. If I know that I have an event in the evening, I will wear something that I can wear in the office all day that then will blend seamlessly to whatever event or performance we have that night.
TL: Did you wear this dress to work?
KV: Yes, I wore this all day in the office. I love a midi or a maxi dress—it’s comfortable in the office, and I can take it to an evening event.
TL: Has Farm Rio been on your radar for awhile?
KV: I love Farm Rio. I like their eclectic and funky patterns that feel modern and also easy to wear. This particular dress I rented through Nuuly, which I do a lot. These patterns are so signature that you can only wear them so many times, so I find that renting gives me the opportunity to wear it a few times and then send it back. I do own some Farm Rio things that I bought at Anthropologie, though.
TL: You wore boots with the dress.
KV: I usually wear booties or boots with a maxi dress—that’s typically my choice.
TL: We’re in transition season right now, and this dress, while being bright and graphic, definitely does not seem out of place.
KV: It’s a perfect fall transition dress. It speaks to a fall palette, but it’s lightweight enough so when it’s 75 degrees in October, you’re still comfortable.
TL: That’s why I love October. You can still squeeze in some summer clothes and wear sandals sometimes, or you can turn the dial to darker colors and heavier fabrics and mix those in as well.
KV: Totally! This dress is that sweet spot for fall—light enough for sunny days, but easy to layer on when it cools down. I’ve always loved Farm Rio for how their pieces spark creativity. They’re not just clothes—they’re a way to express yourself and bring a little joy into everyday life. It fits perfectly with working at a performing arts center, where we get to celebrate art and artists every day.
—Tiina