OK Diario has published an article by Lucía Torres, psychiatrist and medical director at Tranquilamente, in which she reflects on the consequences that addiction to new technologies has on adolescents. Today’s young people literally live glued to the screens, they were born with technology , it is their language. But what consequences does it have for them?
Lucia Torres. Psychiatrist.
Long hours in front of the screen, loss of sleep, challenging or threatening behaviors due to the possibility of devices being removed for a time, abandonment of hobbies and social or family isolation.
These are some of the problems that new technologies cause in young people, but they are only symptoms of deeper damage that is brewing in adolescents.
Does the young person change their behavior because they are hooked on technology or have they become hooked on technology as a means of escape because they have other types of problems? It is possible that both situations occur at the same time, and feed off each other.
To find answers in each case, it is necessary to do a good exploration through a detailed evaluation interview. What do teenagers look for on the networks? What satisfaction does it bring you? Do you create fictitious identities to satisfy narcissism or histrionics? Or do you use social networks to create a space in which to practice contact with peers that for other reasons is not being achieved in the real world?
What there is no doubt is that, like any addiction, new technologies come to complicate the original situation under the initial illusion of an easy solution and entertainment.
Apart from the isolation of the young person that occurs due to the addition of new technologies, there are other dangers such as sexting, grooming or cyberbullying that are just one click away and that have devastating consequences for the being in training.
There are many occasions in which we have accompanied broken teenagers because they find themselves prisoners of the ridicule of their peers for having sent an intimate photo to the person they thought was their partner. And they repeat between sobs “how am I going to tell my parents. They warned me millions of times, never to do this…and I did it.”
Are minors prepared to be given a tool as powerful and potentially harmful as new technologies? Would we give a 12-year-old a driver’s license? Surely the young person has more reflexes and the ability to learn than an adult, but the answer is clear: No. He is not prepared to assume the risks and consequences that his actions may have. If as a result of the game he runs over a teammate… would the young man have the capacity to take charge?
I wonder if our society is prepared to develop regulations for the use of new technologies that protect minors. The age at which children have a cell phone or unlimited access to the Internet is getting older and older… and they are not prepared to create the content they receive (pornographic scenes that they can take as a role model in their intimate relationships, promoting machismo. and inequality in young people) nor to assume the significance that their actions (sexting or cyberbullying) may have.
Finally, adolescence is a time of change and uncertainty in life, in which young people try to define their place in society. If in childhood the individual was supported by the gaze of his parents, during adolescence the support will be exerted by his peers. With social networks, the solidity and protection of a friendship is changed (someone who knows you with your lights and shadows, and still values you and chooses you) for the insecurity and ephemeral sense of “followers” or “likes”.
