The flow of his speech 17-year-old John is interrupted, as it cannot find the word it is looking for. It would be easier for him to express himself with a frown emoji. OR 15-year-old Alexia she spends 9 hours a day in front of or on top of a screen, big or small and can’t tear herself away, even when the clock strikes 3 in the morning and her crimson eyes are constantly watering.

She chats with her friends every day on various apps, but only sees them in person once a week. Sometimes it feels like their online communication is more real than in real life. OR 12-year-old Elena he is afraid In the last month he has repeatedly been the victim of online bullying. She feels scared and isolated and ashamed to talk about it. And the 16-year-old Kostas struggles daily to maintain the impressive persona he has created in social mediaexaggerating his positive attributes and constantly comparing the number of reactions he attracts to those of his peers. He is tired, he feels that no one really knows him and more and more often he feels lonely and depressed.

The above persons are fictional, but the situations described are certainly familiar to many. On the occasion of the recent presentation of its main axes National Strategy for the Protection of Minors from Internet AddictionAPE-MPE spoke with the professor of the Department of Informatics of AUTH, Ioannis Peetapresident of the International Academy of Doctoral Studies in Artificial Intelligence (AIDA), on how excessive use of technology can affect minors. “It is known that technology, for example using social media or chatting with friends online, can cause a 50% to 100% increase in dopamine, comparable to any other pleasurable experience. Using technology causes a different dopamine receptor response than addictive substances. However, technology-related stimuli are all too often present in our lives. In addition, “mind engineering” methods are used by online service designers to maximize user pleasure in the direction of making them addicted forever. As a result, extensive technological stimulation can lead to addictions around the Internet, online pornography, online gambling and video games,” points out Mr. Pieta.

The forest behind the tree

He adds that when we talk about all these problems, we should not only see the tree, that is, we should treat them as individual phenomena. As he says, all these individual problems are part of a more general one, which can, among other things, lead to an inability to face reality and endanger our connection with the real world: “although the subject we are discussing is an object of psychologists or psychiatrists, who are the only ones competent to name such syndromes, I have dubbed this more general problem “generalized online affective and cognitive syndrome disorder” (GOLAC). The syndrome has specific causes – mainly the fear of the unknown and the constant bombardment with notifications and messages – but it manifests itself in various ways: addiction, depression, feelings of loneliness, violent tendencies and behavior, anxiety and distress, lack of self-esteem, impairment of verbal and non-verbal verbal communication skills, high receptivity to misinformation, eating disorders, turn to cyber-bullying and development of blinders within virtual communities like-minded people, whether they are the so-called “flat-earthers”, who claim that the earth is flat, or extreme right-wing and religious fundamentalist organizations”.

Regarding the impairment of verbal and non-verbal communication skills, Mr. Peetas observes that it is a huge problem, which, among other things, manifests itself in writing. “Generations born into the digital age have developed their own vocabulary, which is poorer than that of previous generations. Of course, each generation has its own vocabulary, but this one also uses a lot of “hieroglyphics” (emoji and emoticons). Even their writing skills are compromised, as evidenced by their text messages, which can be a rather strange mix of hieroglyphics, abbreviations and acronyms, instead of a normal, well-formulated text” notes the professor and adds that social problems, lack of proper parental control and guidance, introversion and psychological conditions can reinforce the disorders. “Of course, addiction prevention, primarily through proper education of both parents and minors, is of the utmost importance. However, if addiction progresses, proper diagnosis and treatment are essential,” he adds.

Digital abstinence and fasting?

When asked how such disorders can be treated, Mr. Peetas answers that this is the subject of psychologists and psychiatrists, however there are different ways of managing addictions of each form, as the mechanisms of their reward system are similar. “The most obvious way is to abstain from problematic technology use for a period, e.g. one month. A period long enough to allow the human reward system to rebalance. (…) Another approach is the so-called “dopamine fasting”. It involves a periodic short temporary abstinence, e.g. for a day, from addictive technologies, e.g. from using social media.

This practice is not really aimed at reducing dopamine, but rather at fasting from behaviors that cause dopamine to be released in the reward system. Temporarily depriving the sensation of online pleasure oversupply is expected to rebalance the reward system and increase pleasure and happiness again. However, there is criticism of the scientific basis of dopamine fasting. And this is because the human reward system was developed at a very early stage in the process of life’s evolution (…) and it is extremely difficult to “rebuild” it to deal with a current sensory overstimulation,” he notes.

Would banning the use of social media by minors have any positive results? “I’m not sure the ban can work. Everyone needs education. “Parents should understand that they cannot leave minors unsupervised, and children should understand that alongside the many benefits of using technology, there are many significant risks,” the professor emphasizes and adds that minors should -among other things- to be encouraged to have strong social ties with a physical presence, instead of being limited to digital ones and it has already been observed that when this happens, social problems are less.

“Furthermore, I strongly believe that much more proactive legislation is needed to protect minors, by enforcing regulations that may be against the commercial interests of the social media giants in the short term. There is already legal precedent as, in the past, legislation has restricted smoking and tobacco advertising. It is unfortunate that, for example, social media companies do not set a limit on the number of hours a minor (or indeed any user) can spend on social media platforms each day. It could be a very effective measure, much more than parental control” points out Mr. Pietas and adds that there is an urgent need to immediately study the full spectrum of Generalized Internet Affective and Cognitive Disorder (GOLAC) syndrome.