As the number of social media apps grows, some parents of teenagers worry that social media overload can lead to other problems.

Dorothy Berman, 14, and her 12-year-old sister, Gabriella, spend hours a day scrolling through TikTok and sending Snapchats.

“A lot of kids, especially as you're entering middle school, get very stressed out with school, and they need something to, like, kind of drift away from that stress,” Dorothy said.

Their dad, Douglas Berman, is keeping a watchful eye on what his kids are doing on social media.

“Social media in my time, from what I’m seeing now in today's generation, is a lot different,” Douglas said.

Along with other things, Douglas said he worries about his kids interacting with predators who may have inappropriate intentions on social media.

“You don't know who's watching or when they're watching and who their next target’s going to be,” Douglas Berman said.

A 2022 Pew Research survey shows 46% of parents are extremely or very worried their teens are being exposed to explicit content due to their social media use. Additionally, 42% showed the same level of concern that they’re wasting too much time on it, while 38% said it’s a distraction.

“I feel that there should be a much more restriction on it. I think there should be downtime on it where, you know, a certain time frame where kids basically can use it and a certain time frame, you can't. It shuts down,” Douglas said.

“There is supposed to be, yes. But do I follow it? No, and I think that's just a lot of the teenagers,” Dorothy Berman said.

Douglas said one of his kids was threatened in a social media message. He had to bring it to the attention of authorities. Even then, he was still very concerned.

“I’m not going to get too much into detail about it, but all I’m going to say as much as that I wasn't a happy parent,” Douglas said. “Social media is to the point where now the mentality for the adult mind is when we see it, we’ll believe it.”

He believes more should be done within the school system to monitor the way teenagers are using social media.

Dorothy said she thinks schools should intervene as well. She knows there are issues on social media, but that’s not stopping her from continuing to use it.

“I feel like at times, you just need to be on social media, and that's my personal opinion,” Dorothy said.

Spectrum News 1 reached out to different social media outlets for comments on parents’ concerns about their teens’ social media use. Meta said they’ve implemented tools that allow parents to regulate their Instagram accounts, require certain privacy settings and sends notifications to encourage teens to take regular breaks. Twitter sent an automated response. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd, and Snapchat have not responded.