Nicholas Kardaras, PhD, LCSW-R, is a psychologist, best-selling author, internationally renowned speaker and expert on mental health, addiction, and the impact of our digital age. He has developed clinical treatment programs all over the country and is the founder and chief clinical officer of Maui Recovery in Hawaii, Omega Recovery in Austin, and the Launch House in New York.

Dr. Kardaras is a former clinical professor at Stony Brook Medicine where he specialized in teaching the neurophysiology and treatment of addiction. He has also taught neuropsychology at the doctoral-level and has worked closely in developing clinical protocols with Dr. Howard Shaffer, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the director of their Division of Addiction.

Dr. Kardaras has written for TIME magazine, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Salon, the NY Daily News, and FOX News, and has appeared on ABC’s 20/20, Good Morning America, the CBS Evening News, FOX & Friends, NPR, Good Day New York and in Esquire, New York magazine and Vanity Fair. He was featured on the 2019 A&E TV series Digital Addiction and his 2016 NY Post Op Ed “Digital Heroin” went viral with over six million views and shares.

Dr. Kardaras is the author of the best-selling Glow Kids (St. Martin’s Press, 2016, now translated into 10 languages), the seminal book on the clinical, neurological and sociological aspects of technology addiction. He is the author of How Plato and Pythagoras Can Save Your Life (Conari, 2011) and often uses philosophy to help work with and treat young people who are struggling with an existential crisis.

Considered a leading expert on young people and digital addiction, he has clinically worked with over 2,000 teens and young adults over the last 18 years and has been active in advocating that screen addiction be recognized as a clinical disorder akin to substance addiction. As a result of his clinical training and expertise working with tech addiction, Dr. Kardaras has developed the most comprehensive treatment protocols to treat this emerging global problem. Dr. Kardaras is also a founding charter member of the not-for-profit National Institute for Digital Health and Wellness (NIDHW), which is an affiliate organization of the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy (NISLAPP) in Washington, D.C.