10 novembre 2023
Dr. Daniele Nappo, Legal Representative and Founder of St. Freud's Private School, in today's article places emphasis on social media, which is negative for young minds since it pressures them to assimilate foolish or impossible ideals of beauty or lifestyles.
By 2023, according to various surveys, about 5.2 billion people, well over half of the world's population of less than 8 billion, are surfing social networks unaware of the 'impact these digital networks have on young people's mental health. Adolescence is an exposed period for the development of physical appearance problems, eating disorders, and mental illnesses.Young people must be helped to detoxify their use of social networks such as Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook. Their continuous use is not good for them and does not allow them to have the perception of reality and their personal appearance. In fact, they feel much better, with respect precisely to their appearance, when they shorten the time spent in front of the screen by half. Unfortunately, what appears in these channels is a superstructure of reality, models of distant aesthetic beauty or difficult-to-implement prestige are continually proposed even though it must be said that today's young people perceive a greater capacity for inclusiveness of the diverse and different. Social media is full of fashion and fitness influencers who press 'attackable' teenagers to assimilate beauty ideals or nonsensical lifestyles that are impossible for those with common financial means. Schools need to help students understand that they need to detach themselves from social media and use their free time to engage in hobbies, passions, volunteering.We know how, at this time, young people are experiencing low self-esteem, mental distress, and eating disorders: unfortunately, it is evident that social makes those rift points even more fragile after their thoughtless use even up to or over 8 hours a day. Adolescents build a real bond with social media, they feel a relief in using them because they apparently do not feel frustrated and excluded, but if they started to use them less they would notice significant improvements in their self-esteem. Their use is a feasible system to produce a short-term positive effect on self-image in a vulnerable population of users. The correlation between social network use and mental health is receiving strong attention from researchers also based on an increasingly prolific scientific literature. It must be said, however, that the real problem is the distorted 'consumption' of it that leads to addiction. If parents prohibit this mode of relationship, children show signs of impatience, discomfort or irritability.In essence, adolescents experience a real "fear of not being there," of being cut off from events organized by friends if not connected to social. With the effect of producing further compulsion to be uninterruptedly connected on the Net. Otherwise they feel lonely. It should be taught in school that it is wrong to uncritically accept what others propose and to imitate what other peers do: this is age-typical adolescent tendency to conform, to which the Web has unfortunately provided a powerful reinforcement. The Web can certainly offer new ways of expressing oneself. It is therefore essential that health professionals familiarize themselves with the digital world to intercept this growing demand for help, offering innovative channels of communication and support. Here, too, schools have a key role to play as conduits and in general as educators in the proper and reduced use of social media.
