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Bru started consuming porn at age 10. Now he is no longer a child, but he remembers those times with a single phrase: "It was a very strong addiction." A young man who before he had lost his innocence was already an addict. "These are the drugs of our time," says Anna Lembke, a Stanford neurologist, and one of the voices that can be heard in the documentary Addicted to the Screen. "Drugs that, unlike cocaine, are endless," he warns. "The way they absorb you is a total addiction." He is not exaggerating.

Addicted to the screen is the result of many months of work by the producer Onza and Atresmedia. Journalists Alejandra Andrade and Tomás Ocaña delve into the darkest part of an addiction that everyone knows, that everyone talks about and that everyone knows about. Why? Because everyone has a mobile, computer and tablet, because they have become indispensable tools of our day to day, but nobody wants to face their most perverse side.

"The other day I was at a meeting at my eldest son's school," says Gabriela, who prefers not to say her real name or her children's school to maintain her privacy. "Once the tutor spoke of the evolution of the class, of what the passage to the next course will mean, he called the attention of all parents to what they were finding in the class – 12-year-old children – with those students who already had a mobile phone and, the worst, who already had social networks. I was very scared with everything he said and that my son still does not have it. It scared me to hear what they are already doing at this age with those mobiles and with a technology that we do not seem to want to be aware of the danger it poses, "says this mother.

Children who despite not having the legal age to have social networks, have it and use it without any control. Children who are not aware of the 'weapon' they have in their hand and, above all, the damage they can do and can do to them.

Gabriela's fear is the fear that led Onza and Atresmedia to produce this documentary that can be seen soon – there is still no release date – in laSexta and Atresplayer Premium. The story of this documentary began one day when in a conference Gonzalo Sagardía, CEO of Onza, discovered that a manager of a pronographic portal "was very satisfied" to have managed to get children to enter his portal for the first time at age 11, instead of the 12 he got until then. "That's when I realized that they are deliberately going after them," he explains. "And children don't have personal resources or tools to overcome stimuli designed specifically to capture them."

When you want to realize the child is no longer a child, it is a walking video game

It is the largest companies in the world, those in Silicon Valley, where the documentary team will go to delve even deeper into the origin of the "drug of our time". Companies that "have unlimited resources" with which "they hire the best neuroscientists, who know perfectly how to make us compulsive users, reaching in some cases addicts," insists Sagardía.

This is what this three-part series on the causes and consequences of new addictions wants to demonstrate: social networks, video games, gambling and porn. Screens, screens, screens... That the engagement of youth to them is not the result of chance, but the result of "a great business" that actively seeks new customers. And it does so by listening to the voices of those who fell, of those who, as children, became addicts.

"The stories they tell us in this documentary series, the data it provides and the perspective it gives us on this issue shows that we are facing a very serious problem," explains Carmen Ferreiro, director of Entertainment programs at Atresmedia TV. "That leads us to focus on situations that occur in our society and that are worrying," Insists.

"I was locked in my room all day"

How many 12-year-olds don't have a cell phone? Are we aware of the risks that new technologies pose to adolescents? It is difficult for any parent to ask these questions and not run an icy chill down their spine. "Many parents in particular, and society in general, are not aware of this," says Sagardía.

"I was locked in my room all day with Tik Tok and Instagram, I just went out to eat and buy tobacco." Laura entered the Amalgama 7 Therapeutic School of Can Ros, an internal center for children and adolescents with serious addiction problems. Kids who consume up to 18 hours a day in front of screens. Their families struggle, they struggle to be cured of these substanceless addictions. "When you want to realize the child is no longer a child, it's a walking video game," one mother is heard saying. Because this mother's story can be any of us' story.

"The most shocking thing about the documentary was to see how these children were dominated by their addictions and had no control over their actions," says the producer. Because each testimony of each of the three chapters of Addicted to the Screen is the testimony of addicted children. Children who, as the experts of the documentary say, "could not make their normal life because their addiction prevented it completely". Children who locked themselves in their rooms and their world and who, until the family did not realize it, did not begin "the struggle to get out".

In fact, one of the experts consulted clearly states that these companies are determined to attract users as soon as possible so that "in adulthood they develop more easily abusive use behaviors".

It's not just the danger of getting hooked on the screen, it's the risk that "when something is free, the price is your information," warns Sagardía. Sample button of how the problem of social networks is not the result of chance, but of a strategy of technology companies to attract increasingly younger customers. Scientists, former directors of these companies, prosecutors and victims are clear about what happens to young people: they are going after them. "Big tech is reaching immense levels of power thanks to our information, thanks to that of our children," he adds. According to Carissa Véliz, PhD in Philosophy at the University of Oxford and author of the book Privacy is Power, "it is alarming that these companies have a policy of making money at the expense of anything and are exploiting children."

I've come to bet on sports that I didn't even know what they consisted of.

Dani, addicted to the screen

Adults have to be aware that it is "dangerous for a 12-year-old boy or girl to have a mobile phone with data, unlimited access and without any restriction to the Internet or social networks," says Sagardía, who warns that parents do have tools to stop before addiction arrives: "First they have to activate some parental control system ... The second thing is to explain to your sons and daughters everything they want to know about sexuality before they start surfing the Internet because sooner rather than later they will encounter porn. And finally, establish clear rules of use."

It sounds like what they always say, what they always recommend. And yet "the drug of our time" will continue to exist because "children are the big victims of some of these unscrupulous companies," says Onza.

"I've come to bet on sports that I didn't even know what they were. Everything is going so fast that it's impossible for you to know what you're doing," says Dani. Dani came to spend 100,000 euros on online betting: "Behind all this there is a mafia, a large industry that is feeding on the whole society." It's not a question of prohibiting, it's a question of prevention. And the key "is in the family and in positive education," says Sagardía. "82% of children who do not usually dine as a family have consumed porn in the last 30 days," he concludes.

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