Every now and then that concern for the mental health of young people, who live amid an epidemic of anxiety, depression, loneliness, sleep disorders and, in the worst cases, suicide.
The target group is social networkswhich is expressly designed to grab people’s attention, act on the brain’s reward system and provoke addictive behavior. Too much for a mind in training.
The American psychologist Jonathan Haidt studied this phenomenon “The Fearful Generation”a book that quickly became a worldwide success.
There he warns of the “mental reconnection” that Generation Z, born after 1996, suffered from a childhood dominated by screens and algorithms.
In recent days, several news stories have brought the issue back onto the agenda.
In Australia began to rule a law that prohibits the use of social networks by minors under the age of 16. It forces platforms to verify users’ ages and faces millions of dollars in fines if they fail to comply.
The rule was voted on last year in the full electoral contextafter political analysts found that children’s mental health was a top concern for voters.
In Argentina, a group of parents at a school in Mendoza decided to ban their children from using cell phones until the age of 13, a measure now being followed by families at other schools across the country.
And the Buenos Aires Ministry of Education announced that it would present a development initiative to the rest of the country’s ministers a national program for the digital protection of children, This includes regulatory changes, more research and evaluations.
Concern is growing, fueled by the plight of families And The interest of politicianswho see the topic as a positioning opportunity.
But behind it is free the biggest argument: large technological platforms – based on the cloud and aiming to maximize attention – against civil society. In this case for the healthy development of children and young people.
The question is how to react and it is not clear that the best way is to ban it: something that is very difficult to guarantee and that, moreover, limits the virtues of digital life to an entire generation.
There is a way out and that is education. Train critical users who understand How the platforms work, what they pay attention to and what effects they have. And the school should play a fundamental role in this. Without such training there will only be a ban or extreme regulation a temporary patch in the fight against an unprecedented social experiment.
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