Currently, we are experiencing a change in access to culture, while also seeing modifications in the habits of exchange and relationships between people and Institutions. Thus, we are facing a paradigm-shifting social change.
Although technologies are tools that, when used responsibly, can provide great value in areas such as information transmission and retrieval, communication, work, learning, or leisure; they also serve as tools that improve the accessibility of certain groups to specific cultural and social goods.
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However, the misuse and abuse of new technologies cause the opposite effect to what is desired, involving the following risks:
- Moving from information to overstimulation and inhibition where the person becomes unable to process so much information.
- Replacing communication with social isolation.
- Moving from knowledge of realities to creating a virtual world of fiction and confusion.
- Having learning difficulties, especially in reading and writing.
- Replacing leisure with the abandonment of school, work, and/or family obligations.
In the case of adolescence, there is a higher risk of misuse and abuse of them, as a consequence of low self-esteem and being in a risky family situation that can range from lack of family communication to lack of parental trust towards adolescents.
Likewise, it is a complicated stage due to the difficulty of accepting one’s own body image, as well as belonging to a group and being constantly subjected to the pressure exerted by it.
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The negative effects that excessive consumption of new technologies can produce are the following:
- 55% of young people between 14 and 18 years old consume video games
- Between 6% and 9% of internet users have addiction problems.
- There is an internet addiction disorder (IAD) derived from abuse.
- Loss of sense of reality
- Learning difficulties
- Problems in reading, writing, and the development of abstract thought.
- Loss of sense of reality
- Splitting of the adolescent’s personality: the “real self” and the invented “ideal self”
- Loss or non-acquisition of values (superhero)
- Learning of violence
- Learning of human rights abuse
- Decrease in academic, family, and work performance
- Isolation and loss of affections and emotions.
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The first symptoms of misuse of new technologies are:
- Increased consumption both at home and outside.
- Tendency towards social isolation
- Progressive breakdown of real social relationships.
- Significant decrease in academic performance
- Aggressiveness
- Fantasy ideas
To address this, it is important to approach it from both an educational and a therapeutic perspective.
Regarding the educational approach, the following can be chosen:
- Encourage outdoor activities among young people.
- Parents should talk and play with their children to improve communication.
- Parents should become role models for their children, not be replaced by other television or video game references.
- Schools should conduct educational campaigns to correctly use media and turn them into learning tools.
- When consuming content from both television and the internet, those that transmit values and emotions that the young person is capable of processing and understanding should be chosen.
- Limit consumption hours to promote good use.
On the therapeutic side, the following aspects can be worked on:
- Establish fixed schedules and try to spend as little time as possible in front of a computer.
- Add filters to websites and ensure parents are present when young people connect to the internet.
- Avoid having the computer in the bedroom.
- Lead by example.
The final conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that the future is shaped by human beings, not by objects that can make our lives easier. Likewise, we should not humanize objects, but rather humanize relationships between people.
[/vc_column_text][vc_cta h2=”Mila Martín Pascual” h4=”Psychologist and family therapist”][/vc_cta]