With respect to children, the Internet, video games and even the smartphone can become a danger and fuel forms of addiction.
There are various modes of exposure to risk by weak users-not just minors.
Game addiction creates disturbances in social relationships and on school performance; but conversely, online games also open opportunities for social relationships, including international ones, and can develop some digital skills.
Addiction produces enormous risks still and especially for younger people, who may stumble into games that are dangerous to their and others’ safety.
On the net one can find social games such as Blue Whale, which even incites to suicide; one can become a victim of cyberbullying, a form of online bullying that can take the most varied forms of a persecution that lasts over time, develops in an underhand way by spreading even private and intimate news and information, and comes to make one’s target feel hunted and threatened even in the home.
The addiction of online gamers can also foster their isolation: in Japan, the phenomenon of social isolation typical of Japanese teens who live apart, locked in their rooms withdrawing from social life for prolonged periods, sometimes for years, has even earned its own name, Hikikomori, a Japanese term meaning precisely “to stand apart” or “to isolate oneself.” Some scholars, such as Rachel Brown of the Australian National University, liken the smartphone to a parasite, which exploits dopamine and algorithms to manipulate the centers of attention and gratification and keep you tethered to it, feeding on your data and online activities. The majority of young people in developed countries are considered addicted to the smartphone, which alters postures, vision problems, thumb problems, and “offloading” of memory, which is delegated to the parasitic device. It is essential to recognize this phenomenon, and to begin to intervene, as the Australian government has done by imposing a ban on social media for minors, and with educational activities on the addictive and manipulative mechanisms practiced by many digital platforms.
Italiano