The family that puts up with Zuckerberg and fights Facebook

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His name is Jim Winston and apart from being the son of the late founder of a large family institution, he is also the one who methodically starts a multi-faceted “war” against Facebook, focusing on the effects of such social networking platforms on the brains of children and adolescents.

The psychologist by profession, Winston, for this endeavor, has a solid financial foundation behind him: His father literally “built” from scratch a significant fortune through real estate and investment, which he left almost all after his death. , in a family institution, the Jim Winston Family Foundation, which currently has assets over $ 100 million, according to an extensive Forbes report.

Now, Winston is launching his own campaign against Mark Zuckerberg, trying to combat the impact these social networking applications have on the vulnerable psyche of young people.

“After the first years of our lives, adolescence is the second most critical period for the development of the brain, when the need for social connection is as strong as the instinct of hunger itself,” he said, speaking on the financial website and adding that “Children are not able to manage all this digital overstimulation. Social networking companies know this and have made it their “weapon”. They take advantage of this weakness to keep children glued to their screens and apps. And they succeed. “

A multifaceted battle
Winston says he has many ways to “war” against Facebook. First, on a theoretical level, after contributing to the funding of an entire curriculum on “Social Media, Technology and the Teenage Brain” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also attended.

Second, the Winston Foundation plans to create a modified course with the University for those they consider to be the most vulnerable: high school students. At the same time, it is financing the writing of a “Handbook on the proper use of digital media and the mental health of adolescents”, which will be distributed free of charge to pupils and students.

There is, however, a follow-up to Winston’s grandiose plan: the creation of a series of documentaries, temporarily entitled The Parent Dilemma, designed to further enhance the impact of the recent successful documentary The Social Dilemma. “(The Social Dilemma).” I have significant clinical experience with addiction, “he says, noting emphatically that when I accompanied my eldest son to school, I noticed that older students never took their eyes off their phones. . Even when they fell on me, they did not even glance. “They were ‘hostages’ of their devices.”

Winston, who does not have social media accounts, believes that adolescents’ brains are particularly vulnerable to digital overstimulation and that the widespread use of social media will lead millions of children to develop emotional health problems, intimacy and sexuality. , as well as lack of critical thinking and social skills.

“This discussion made me realize what was missing. There was no academic course addressing these issues. “No one was talking to the students or their parents,” he said, who then contacted the University of North Carolina to set up a study program. The program is “run” by Kevin Guskiewicz [Kevin Guskiewicz], neuroscientist and rector of the University.

The University then appointed Mitch Prinstein, Scientific Officer of the American Psychological Association. [Mitch Prinstein], as one of the first teachers to teach this course, while Eva Telzer was appointed Associate Professor [Eva Telzer], mainly thanks to her recent research on how social and cultural processes shape adolescent brain development.

“Parents should be terrified”
This University of North Carolina team is already in the midst of many studies, including one in which it monitors a group of teens and their use of digital media for five years, starting in sixth grade.

“I do not think most parents are aware of the profound changes that social media brings to adolescents’ brains,” Prinstein added. “She should have terrorized her parents. “I do not know what scares me the most, the science of social media and its effects on the brains of teenagers or when I go home and see my own children growing up in a world dominated by social media,” he said emphatically.

As the scientists note, “the adolescent brain is particularly susceptible to social media. Adolescent hormones affect the brain one or two years before the natural changes in their body become apparent. “These hormones flood the young brain with neurotransmitters like dopamine that are responsible for euphoria and others like oxytocin regarding the need for social interaction and acceptance.”

“Brain reward centers are much more active in children than in adults,” says Telzer.

“Technology, and in particular a social media, is taking control of our brains with disastrous consequences. The likes of social media trigger the same area of ​​the brain that “hit” drugs and alcohol, flooding it with the anticipation of another like. A child born today and raised primarily in all kinds of electronic devices will be neurobiologically incapable of reading “War and Peace” as an adult. Not out of laziness or lack of motivation. “He will just be incompetent,” Winston added.

Of course, researchers at the University of North Carolina know that Facebook is aware of all this, but it is not doing anything in the opposite direction. “Social media companies are aware of this research,” adds Telzer.

“The human race is at a critical juncture. Guided by products and profit opportunities. “Even the people who created these platforms saw them move on roads they could never have imagined,” Princet added. the course we are following now “.

Forbes

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