Since the massive emergence of technology, cases of anxiety have also increased. Syndromes such as FOMO and the “Like me” complex have caused total dependence. The testimonies of young people, the opinion of specialists and the crucial role of parents in the face of this silent pandemic.

The arrival of social media marked a before and after in the way we interact. In addition to promoting instantaneousness and the need to constantly show what we are doing, where and why, it generated an addictive dependence on cell phones. However, the physical and psychosocial effects that this transformation caused in children and adolescents are only now being seen.

In the book The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haid warned that platforms brought about great changes in young people aged 10 to 20, caused by rapid technological advances since the 2010s.

“During this period, adolescents’ social lives largely shifted to smartphones, with constant access to social media, online gaming and other internet-based activities. This reshaping of childhood is the main reason for the tsunami of mental illness, anxiety, depression and self-harm in adolescents and pre-adolescents. No other theory has been able to explain why rates of adolescent anxiety and depression increased in so many countries at the same time in the same way,” he said.

After analyzing data, surveys and different global studies, the author listed the main problems that social networks generated in digital natives:

• Social deprivation: Since teenagers started to have their own cell phones, face-to-face meetings began to decline. Between 2012 and 2019, the daily time that a teenager spends with their friends face to face was reduced by 54%. The connections are superficial, losing quality time and this was deepened by the pandemic.
• Lack of sleep: It is proven that a teenager with a cell phone in hand can sleep seven hours a day or less, which can cause anxiety, irritability, cognitive deficit, insufficient learning, accidents and even accidental deaths.
• Fragmentation of attention: There are different studies that reflect that the use of social networks interferes with this capacity, since they distract them and can harm the development of executive function. A situation that highlights this point is the classroom, where concentration lasts just minutes.
• Addiction: The creators of the applications developed behavioral techniques to “hook” the kids and get them to stay as long as possible. This generates dopamine, but it does not produce a feeling of satisfaction; instead, it makes them want more of whatever produced that release.

For Haid, the sum of these four items explains why mental health worsened so much and so suddenly once childhood became phone-based.

The cell phone from an early age as a source of entertainment

On public transport, in a restaurant, in meetings and even in the square. More and more parents are giving their babies a cell phone to entertain them with cartoons or games. The image is repeated in any environment and shows that, from an early age, they are subjected to strong stimuli.

“Before, parents came to the doctor's office and asked when they were given a cell phone, now as soon as they are born they are given one to calm them down and entertain them. Parenting through screens did not begin now with cell phones, but with televisions. It was known as the babysitter television. That relieves parents for a while. It has existed for years but the dynamic has changed, since it is more invasive by being interactive,” psychologist Miguel Espeche described to TN.

Along these lines, María Pía del Castillo, psychopedagogue of the Fundación Padres y Madres, said: “The child naturally plays. We are the adults who need them to be calm so that we can be calm. How did we do it before to travel? We found activities to do in the car, games, songs, listening to music, interacting. Now we need that distance so that, ultimately, they don't bother us.”

“When we take those screens away, anxiety appears and the inability to control impulses grows. A vicious circle is created that is very difficult to escape. You should never use a screen to control an emotion because it is counterproductive,” he added.

In fact, specialists recommend postponing the use of screens in children as much as possible to avoid this dependence. From 0 to 2 years old they should not have contact with screens and, from that age on, very little and always with parental supervision. When they reach adolescence, logically, they will want to be in contact with their friends, so it is advisable to monitor the time of use and the content.

Espeche, in turn, added: “The reality is that screens have them captivated, so the problem is not only what the screens do to them, but what they stop doing because of the screens. “Kids don’t play as much as they used to, and they don’t develop creative skills like they used to.”

The situation became more critical after the pandemic, as both cell phones and computers became the necessary tools for studying, talking to friends and playing at the same time. This resulted in the naturalization of the use of screens in the population, which, until then, was not so common.

The fear of being left out and the need for approval from others

According to the data mentioned in the book, girls use social media more than boys and tend to prefer those platforms “oriented towards visual content focused on the image, such as Instagram and TikTok.”

Sol, Camila and Azul are 17 years old and are months away from finishing school. In conversation with TN, the three agreed that they spend too much time glued to the cell phone as “an easy escape from boredom.”

In fact, one of them admitted to having used it an average of 9 hours in the last week: “TikTok 5 hours, Instagram 4. I try to regulate the use, but it is almost impossible.” Another assured that “if I did not spend so much time on the cell phone I could do some activity outside of school.”

“We find ourselves trapped in technology and in the algorithm without wanting to. It is a problem that can become an addiction,” lamented Sol.

The choice of these applications is not random. “There are two categories of motivation. “One is the desire to stand out and make an impact on the world and the other is the desire to connect and develop a sense of belonging,” Haid said.

“Teenagers are building their first significant relationships outside the home. Therefore, identity will develop from ideas about themselves, role models, their relationship with others and their projects. They are in a period that is very sensitive to the public eye,” Javier Mandil, psychologist and member of the Board of Directors of the Fundación Equipo de Terapia Cognitiva Infantojuvenil (ETCI), explained to TN.

Social media use in the world between 2012 and 2024

A concept that has been strengthened by the use of different applications appears: the illusion of an audience. Mandil defined it as “that feeling that everyone is aware of what you do.” The three teenagers stated that it is very difficult for them to get away from the screens because every time they try, they feel like they are missing something. “Almost everything happens through social media, because of what someone said, what someone else posted,” they explained.

This is where two syndromes come into play: FOMO, which stands for “Fear Of Missing Out,” and the “Like me” complex, which refers to the need to constantly have the approval of their peers.

In this context, Haid noted that young women are more likely to develop “socially prescribed perfectionism” because “they try to live up to unattainable expectations, exposed to harassment and accosting from older men, or even pressure from boys their age to share nude photos of them.”

“We believe everything we see on social media. For example, a girl with a great body, or a diet to lose 5 kilos in a week. This generates thousands of insecurities in all girls, wanting to be like what we see. This totally affects mental health, one can spend the whole day thinking ‘I'm not pretty’ or ‘I'm not skinny enough,’” Camila said.

A generation with anxiety and depression

The psychopedagogue Castillo said that young people are skilled when it comes to handling the phone, but that they are not physically and emotionally prepared to digest so many stimuli.

Many celebrities decided to withdraw from social media because they cannot emotionally bear the negative comments and violence that are generated. A clear example is that of the singer María Becerra, who months ago spoke about the mental health problems she went through as a result of the hate messages she received daily and the need to close her accounts for an indefinite time.

“I'm leaving. “I have struggled a lot with my mental health on this tour in Europe, it all feels horrible. I experienced everything from crying fits to anxiety and panic attacks. Every day I would wake up and read thousands of offensive things about myself,” the 24-year-old artist expressed.

So, it is logical that a teenager is not ready to face everything that happens in the virtual world, which is real and has a great impact on their mental health.

This is reflected in the data collected by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the United States, which from 2010 to 2020 recorded a 145% increase in cases of depression in girls and 161% in boys; while anxiety rose by 92% in people aged 18 to 25.

Meanwhile, she observed that suicide cases in this same period of time grew by 91% in men and 167% in women. The case of the 16-year-old teenager who took her own life in Longchamps after a classmate spread an intimate video highlighted the risks they run due to so much exposure. Ema invited him to her house after class and he filmed her without consent. The boy shared those images with a friend and, hours later, they had spread throughout the school.

“She asked them to stop and no one stopped. She was depressed, she was terribly embarrassed. It was an outburst, something she couldn't sustain,” lamented the mother in an interview with TN. Since this episode, parents of teenagers have expressed their concern about the psychological impact their children may suffer in the face of this type of situation that is becoming more and more frequent.

The role of parents and the importance of setting limits

Although it is true that social networks are growing by leaps and bounds and that children have access to them at an increasingly early age, Espeche stressed the importance of the role of parents and the limits to counteract this phenomenon.

In this digital age, eliminating screens from your life is practically impossible. Therefore, he does not recommend going against them, but rather giving alternatives: “This is an addiction, that is how we understand it and how we study it. It is based on emotional discomfort. If children feel alone, bored, they turn to screens that entertain them and overstimulate them. “They have to do activities together and the child does not feel that it is a time to control them. If you give the child quality time, the child will choose that over virtual life.”

“We are the first generation that grew up with so much technology. Now we do not realize it, but in the future we will see how it impacted our growth, development and life in general,” Azul reflected.