New York Center for Living Appoints Dr. Nicholas Kardaras as CEO and Launches First-of-Its-Kind Technology Addiction Program
In a city synonymous with innovation, ambition, and relentless connectivity, a quieter crisis has been unfolding, one that lives not in the streets, but in the screens people carry everywhere. Now, the New York Center for Living (NYCFL) is confronting that crisis head-on, appointing Dr. Nicholas Kardaras as CEO and launching a first-of-its-kind Technology Addiction Program aimed at teens, young adults, and professionals increasingly consumed by digital life.
For Dr. Kardaras, a nationally recognized psychologist and one of the earliest voices to warn about the dangers of excessive screen use, the mission is both urgent and personal. “We provide Intensive Outpatient for teens and young adults who are struggling with an addiction to video games, social media, online gambling, porn and AI,” he said. “Oftentimes tech addiction co-occurs with mental health issues like anxiety and depression. We treat both the addiction and the underlying issues to help people reconnect with their lives and communities in meaningful ways.”
Founded more than 15 years ago by Elizabeth Kabler, with early support from the Annenberg Foundation, NYCFL was created to fill a glaring gap in New York City: a lack of accessible mental health and addiction services tailored to adolescents and young adults. “She realized that there were no services, which was sort of shocking because we’re the biggest city in the world,” Dr. Kardaras explained. What began as a targeted solution has since evolved into a comprehensive outpatient program serving individuals ages 13 to 35, offering therapy, psychiatry, and community-based care.
But the landscape has changed dramatically since those early days, and not for the better.
“The mental health crisis has disproportionately impacted adolescents and young adults,” Dr. Kardaras said. “Our young people have gotten sicker and more unwell psychiatrically.” In his view, one of the primary accelerants of that decline is technology.
Nearly a decade ago, Dr. Kardaras ignited controversy by describing screen addiction as “digital heroin.” Today, he stands by the comparison. “The brain imaging research is clear, your brain on screens looks exactly like your brain on drugs,” he said, pointing to studies showing that chronic screen overuse can impair the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for decision-making and impulse control. “The prefrontal cortex shrinks over time, and so it’s very analogous.”
The consequences, he says, are not theoretical. They are visible in the lives of patients who arrive at NYCFL struggling with depression, anxiety, social isolation, and in some cases, complete derailment. “Their lives get really small, they’re flunking out of college, they’re back in mom and dad’s basement, they’re depressed, suicidal, they don’t have real-life relationships,” he said.
The Center’s new Technology Addiction Program is designed to address exactly that. It combines traditional evidence-based therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, with experiential approaches that push patients back into the real world. “We use Manhattan as our playground,” Dr. Kardaras said. “We take excursions. We want to get people experiencing life as an adventure.”
That emphasis on reconnection, both to the physical world and to other people, is central to the Center’s philosophy. In addition to individual and group therapy, the program includes family support, skill-building for healthier tech use, and treatment for co-occurring disorders such as ADHD and substance abuse.
Dr. Kardaras is blunt about what patients are up against. “The algorithm is like a heat-seeking missile that senses psychological vulnerability,” he said. “If you’re a young person with depression or body image issues, it’s going to bombard you with content that attacks that vulnerability because it increases engagement.”
He points to internal research revealed by whistleblowers showing that social media companies were aware of the harm their platforms could cause and chose not to act. “That’s the part that gets me, the intentionality behind it,” he said. “It’s a classic example of profit over people.”
The broader data tells a similarly troubling story. “If you look at generational cohorts, the older the group, the more mentally well they are,” Dr. Kardaras noted. “The younger the cohort, the higher the rates of depression and anxiety. Suicide rates have essentially doubled for adolescents over the last 10 to 15 years.”
And yet, Dr. Kardaras remains cautiously optimistic. Just as public awareness campaigns once reshaped attitudes toward smoking and drug use, he believes a similar reckoning could emerge around technology. Legislative efforts like the Kids Online Safety Act, on which he has consulted, aim to impose guardrails on how platforms interact with young users.
Still, meaningful change will require more than policy, it will require a cultural shift. At NYCFL, the goal is to restore what has been lost: not just attention spans or academic performance, but a sense of purpose, belonging, and real human connection.
“There was a time when social media promised connection,” Dr. Kardaras said. “It should have been a match made in heaven. Instead, what we saw was the opposite. Today, if you could find me a 17, 18, 22-year-old that’s not struggling with some level of screen time, mental health, depression, anxiety, that’s a golden unicorn.”
With its new leadership and expanded mission, the New York Center for Living is betting that those unicorns don’t have to stay mythical, and that recovery, even in a hyper-digital age, is still within reach.