• Health This is how frequent consultation of social networks affects the adolescent's brain
  • Study 26% of adolescents make problematic use of the mobile, which leads them to sleep worse, have anxiety and be more aggressive with their parents

The phenomenon of dangerous viral challenges that have caused the death of many young people around the world continues to grow precisely because of the same viral nature of social networks. Psychologists have analyzed the causes of this enormous problem in which we all have responsibility, as viewers of these social networks.

"What they will say has always existed, but what they will say we have now on our screens is absolutely disproportionate, it becomes almost pathological." It is one of the keys to this phenomenon: we are talking about a certain pathologization of adolescents who perform these challenges, but there is also a certain pathologization of the spectators who sustain these phenomena and who are, therefore, responsible. "Apparently they are the seconds of this story, but they are the ones who maintain it because without spectators the phenomenon would crumble like a sugar in hot water. The spectators are the ones who reign in this kind of spectacle in which life in social networks is becoming. If we did not have that certainty that the likes are going to make us feel good and will increase our self-esteem, none of these behaviors would be maintained at all, "emphasizes José Antonio Luengo, dean of the Official College of Psychology of Madrid.

What can we do to avoid this whole vicious circle? Experts agree that it is not easy, but all believe that, in addition to the education of the population and the role of parents and educators, certain measures should be taken by the industry.

Legislating not to censor, but as public health measures

"People are going to continue to happen to the most beastly things because it is a slope without limits," believes Guillermo Fouce, doctor in Psychology and president of Psychology without Borders, who points out that it is vital to reconnect the consequences of what is done. "Violence is not a game, self-harm is not a game. Putting it back in a situation of abnormality is not normal, it would be the second step. And there have to be rules that prevent this from being done, we have to cut off their communication. There should be a regulation of the network so that many things are prevented and that should not be interpreted as a limitation of freedom, but as a protection of public health."

The psychologist points out that there are many examples on the internet. "From how to make MOTAPM to how to make a weapon or a bomb, these things are criminal and should be prosecuted and prevented from being freely accessible. It is one of the things that should be regulated and that we are doing wrong, without a doubt. And there is technology to do it because it is done with sex and with nude images, so with these contents it could be done, even if they always say they cannot control it."

Can you put 'doors to the field' of the internet?

Anna Sintes, head of the Self-Harm Unit at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, says she does not know what should be done at the level of society in general because "we are slow to make laws and we are far behind technological advances". But as an expert in mental health, she points out that she has to inform and train adolescents, parents and teachers, "everyone who is involved to give healthy coping strategies so that kids are stronger and have the ability to resist these phenomena. If they ask us for advice from the communication or legislative sector we also participate, but I am afraid that they pay little attention to us, although from the different associations of psychologists and psychiatrists we work to make a psychoeducation of the population ".

The expert insists that it is difficult "to make laws that influence a Meta-type company, which runs Facebook, Instagram ... It can be limited, like now TikTok that limits to one hour a day to those under 18, but these companies will not promote mental health unless they are interested in level of followers or making money or looking good. A very beastly censorship would have to be done and it would come out somewhere else, that is, censorship is not the solution either. You have to regulate with the information of experts, but it is difficult to do it."

Luengo also thinks, like Fouce, that there is a lot of hypocrisy on the internet and that the industry has to do something because when they want they do it with what content. "I'm not saying invent the 'superdoor' of the internet field, but we will have to limit some issues as is being done in some countries, that it is not so easy to access certain things."

Homeschooling: What Parents Can Do

Luengo is very clear about something: "This is not going to stop, but it is everyone's responsibility that we do something." Starting with the parents. "Parents do not lose capacity, but we do lose interest in things, while young people join the novelties as if their lives depended on it. Parents have the obligation to know what are those spaces in which they move, it is not worth that of 'I do not know about this', we will have to go to whoever can inform us to be able to talk to our children. "

The dean of Madrid psychologists remembers when he sat down several years ago with his son who was 14 and told him 'let's go into some pages where we are going to see things you shouldn't see'. "It's important for them to know that we know about this and that they hear us say 'you're going to make mistakes, you're going to get into places that are not suitable, you're going to be impelled sometimes to do things that are not appropriate, but I'm not going to judge you.'"

Luengo says physical challenges in controlled, not virtual, environments have always occurred. "I'm going to do the fifth mortal by jumping from the trampoline or see who climbs to the top of the tree or we took the bikes and threw ourselves down some hellish slopes. It was our way of having fun and they were also challenges. Of course sometimes you fell and there has been a broken arm, but they were not viral, they stayed in the environment of the 10-12 friends who were there making the shrimp because it was impossible to viralize the process, beyond that our parents later found out. We have to talk to them and not to accuse them or tell them 'be careful, be careful', that is useless, but to tell them 'when you get into a mess you tell me that I am going to help you, I am going to accompany you'".

The role of schools

A second element for this psychologist has to do with the work that teachers can develop in schools. "It's developing, but we're always behind, we're slow. We are also using a model that does not work very well, which is the expert talk. I go there and tell the guys, or the cops or whatever professional. I'm not saying that through one ear it enters and through the other it comes out to the kid, but it doesn't work. We do know that there are methods that do it, for example, train kids over 14-15-16 years old and that they are the ones who work with the little ones, who tell them their experiences. They listen much more to these kids, but in schools we have to create spaces for that mediation work that older kids can do with younger ones."

  • Mental health
  • Adolescents
  • Tik Tok
  • Internet
  • Social Media

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