Nicki Petrossi
Founder & Host, Scrolling 2 Death · Online child-safety advocate
Nicki Petrossi is a former social media executive turned online child-safety advocate and the host of Scrolling 2 Death, a podcast for parents worried about social media. She has produced more than 300 episodes and reaches over a million parents a week. In 2025 she co-founded the Tech-Safe Learning Coalition and launched an investigative series to hold Big Tech accountable for harms to children.
Reviewed July 2026Nicki Petrossi spent about fifteen years in social media marketing, managing pages for tech companies and their executives, before she walked away. As she learned how much time online was harming children, and as her own kids grew older, she saw that parents did not have the information they needed to make critical decisions about devices and access. In late 2023 she launched Scrolling 2 Death, a podcast for parents worried about social media, and has since produced more than 300 episodes with U.S. senators and lawmakers, tech whistleblowers, doctors, attorneys, teachers, and the parents and youth living these harms firsthand.
The Scrolling 2 Death community now reaches over a million parents every week. Nicki travels the country speaking at schools, conferences, and summits on online safety, and appears on news segments including America's Newsroom on Fox, NBC, and Merit Street's Morning show with Dr. Phil. In 2025 she co-founded the Tech-Safe Learning Coalition, a resource for parents concerned about school-issued technology, founded the S2D Foundation to fund that work, and launched The Heat is On, an investigative podcast and parent movement to hold Big Tech accountable for harms to children. She serves on the boards of the Alexander Neville Foundation and the Sustainable Media Center.
On The Ryan Vet Show, Nicki Petrossi maps the harms hiding beyond social media and makes the case that responsibility sits with the companies, not just parents. She takes host Ryan Vet past the familiar screen-time conversation into the traps most parents are not watching: Roblox and online gaming, encrypted chat apps like Discord, and AI companion bots built to befriend, isolate, and addict young users. She walks through the cases that changed how she sees this fight, including chatbots tied to the deaths of Sewell Setzer III and Adam Raine.
The conversation connects to Ryan's velocity gap, the idea that technology accelerates faster than human morality and wisdom can catch up, and traces what is finally shifting: more than 1,500 school districts suing, court cases turning on internal documents, and Australia and the UK moving to raise the minimum age to 16. Nicki closes with a plan for parents, from newborns to teens, grounded in staying a safe, open place a child can always come back to.
We're fighting against neuroscientists and technologists who have come together to build the most addictive algorithms that are yet to exist, and every single day they get smarter.
If your platform is addictive or predatory in any way, you do not get access to children.
It's never too late to make any kind of changes around the screen time or the access you've given your child.
Who is Nicki Petrossi?
Nicki Petrossi is a former social media executive turned online child-safety advocate and the host of Scrolling 2 Death, a podcast for parents worried about social media. She has produced more than 300 episodes and reaches over a million parents a week.
What online dangers exist beyond social media?
Nicki points to online gaming platforms like Roblox where kids connect with strangers, encrypted messaging apps like Discord that predators exploit, and AI companion bots designed to befriend, isolate, and addict young users.
Are AI companion chatbots safe for children?
Nicki says no. She cites cases where chatbots groomed and isolated children, including ones tied to the deaths of Sewell Setzer III and Adam Raine, and recommends keeping AI companions away from minors entirely.
Is YouTube Kids safe for kids?
Not reliably. Nicki notes that harmful user-generated content slips through YouTube Kids' automated filters, only about 4 percent of YouTube videos are assessed as educational, and internal documents show the platform was engineered for addiction.
Is it too late to change my child's screen habits?
No. Nicki points to brain neuroplasticity and says it is never too late to set limits or remove devices. The most important thing is staying a safe, non-judgmental place your child can come back to.
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