Decaffeinate Instagram to alleviate anxiety: out of likes and stop suffering in the networks
Mafalda
fans will
no doubt remember one of her strips in which, after much resistance, her father finally agrees to buy a television.
But to 'minimize the damage', he naively places plants with huge leaves on top that completely cover the screen.
If the cartoon had been drawn today, surely where there is a TV there would be a mobile connected to
or
TikTok
. And the father's attempts (
Quino's
character
never had a name) for his daughter not to access social networks, would be as doors to the field as the leaves in those pots.
Such as those that the parents of two out of every three Spanish children between 10 and 15 years of age try to place every day, who are those who have a mobile phone in Spain.
"When they talk about what parents can do, I think we are a generation that has had to deal with the unknown," explains IC, from Madrid, a mother of two boys, 19 and 21 years old.
"We have had to adapt to technology in our work and also to 'social' technology, and we did not know the scope that the networks would have and how they would impact our children. In my case, the councils of the Parents' Schools and others could serve as an orientation, but we have ended up going blind. Because, in addition, each child is different, and the roles, and the friends, and the networks that form between them ".
AN OCEAN OF UNKNOWN DANGERS
Thus, terrified by the stalking
grooming
,
sexting
or
cyberbullying
, children's cell phones have become a real nightmare for parents. Although there is another risk, nothing less, although less perceptible, that can wreak havoc on the psychology of the child in the long term: a constant
dissatisfaction with the own image
to adapt to the standards of physical beauty or lifestyle that they quietly impose. but relentless networks like Instagram.
"My son is 21 years old, he was born with the century and the millennium, and he has grown at the same time that the internet and social networks did," explains IC. "At the age of 11 he asked me to join
Tuenti
and at 13 he started on
ask.com .
Here, answer to anonymous people ask you things like 'What rating would
you give fulanito or Menganita?'. as if the game matchstick or bottle, with the difference that you
do not know who's asking. There I intervened. He got angry because he had 'gossiped' his account, and I explained that, if his account was public, anyone could join in. Not only me, but also his teachers, the parents of the girl he liked or of any of the that 'scored' ...It was about explaining the risks of anonymity (and the audacity it gives to those who practice it) ... ".
The natives of the like and the duck syndrome
Digital natives have grown up valuing others, their appearance, their actions, through social networks.
And now let's think: if Instagram has managed to modify adult behavior, how can it not have a decisive influence on adolescents?
"My 13-year-old daughter uses the networks, mainly to interact with her friends. Friends ... whom she sees every day. But the exchange of likes has been installed in their lives as in the past that of stickers. And also, you need the 'public' approval of all the clothes you wear or the activities you do, "explains DN from Malaga.
From the
Child Mind Institute
in New York,
Rae Jacobson
writes that "for adolescents, the combined weight of vulnerability, the need for validation and the desire to compare themselves to their friends creates a
perfect storm of low self-esteem
." In social networks these very young people always appear confident, happy, relaxed and successful. But it is usually at the cost of making tremendous efforts not to disappoint the expectations of others.
These adolescents suffer from what is known as
'duck syndrome', an
expression coined at
Stanford University
and originally applied to students struggling to survive the pressures of a competitive environment while presenting the image of the cool and laid-back Californian. Come on, like a duck that seen from the outside seems to glide effortlessly over a river but whose legs, underwater, move frantically to maintain composure and not be carried away by the current.
Although 'duck syndrome' is not included in the official list of
mental illnesses
(the famous American DSM-5 index), it is widely described, researched and linked to serious problems such as
depression
and
anxiety
.
WHAT CAN WE DO
The big question is whether we can keep our children out of this ongoing evaluation of social media ... without removing them from social media. ID, from Barcelona, saw how her 12-year-old daughter began to suffer as soon as she landed in the social media universe: "She
made a few videos on
YouTube
. And with the videos came the comments, some good, but most destructive. taught and we decided to moderate the comments, see them before authorizing their publication. On the third or fourth video, my daughter decided to stop posting on YouTube. "
This mother's conclusion: "No matter what you do, you can't protect them. And that kind of relationship with the outside is harmful." For this reason, he believes that "it is better to reinforce their self-esteem and respect for others before giving them a telephone. Giving a mobile phone to a child without further ado is like throwing it to the lions. It is
the law of the jungle.
Either they will eat it or they will survive. eating others ".
Experts also warn that in this marshy terrain, girls 'play' at a disadvantage.
As the clinical psychologist and author
Catherine Steiner-Adair
-expert in the impact of technology on child development-
explains
, in an article for the Child Mind Institute, "in socialization, girls are more likely to
compare themselves
with other people, in particularly with other girls, as a way of
developing their own identity,
which makes them more vulnerable in this area. "
IMPOSSIBLE, BUT YOU CAN MINIMIZE THE RISK
So the answer to whether it is possible for parents to ensure that their children, and especially their daughters, grow up safe from the gaze of others is: no. As
Enric Soler,
relational psychologist and tutor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC)
explains
: "Pretending that our children live on the margins of society is a
utopia
. There are Instagram, TikTok, in the same way that there are cars and traffic lights. In fact, parents who try to isolate their children from the existence of these or other RRSS, the only thing they are going to achieve is to endow them with the attraction of the forbidden. You have to talk with the children about the RRSS, know how and what they use them for, and above all, make it clear that not having more likes does a person have more value ".
The
positive reinforcement,
says expert this should get "the people want, and they want us not to strangers who know nothing about us. If all children do not learn to cross a red light, why not can they learn to make reasonable use of social networks? ".
For his part,
Steiner-Adair
believes that much more productive than kidnapping their cell phone or throwing a row after another, it will be to work on our children's self-esteem: helping them to accept their own body, developing their critical spirit (very important so that they do not believe everything what they read), introducing them to sports, praising them not for their appearance, but for their efforts, making them trust us, and themselves ... Yes, it is much more difficult and takes much longer than leaving them alone with a mobile so that they do not give the ember.
But it sure saves you a lot of time and suffering in the future.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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