Addiction in adolescence. Addiction to new technologies

Addiction to new technologies

It is a growing phenomenon. However, the abuse often masks other underlying psychopathology.

It could be summarized in three points:

1. Any misuse of social networks and smartphones (smartphones) is usually a secondary manifestation of other psychological problems, family or personal.

2. May cause loss of social skills and social relationships difficult.

3. Its therapeutic intervention consists of re-learning a controlled behavior.

Social networks offer users the possibility of getting more visibility to other users and stay connected with your friends and followers. They turn emotions.

Smartphones in particular have gained a special appeal to teens in recent times for different reasons:

- Fast Response

- The recompesas are fast

- Allow interact.

- They offer many opportunities to interact

Good use Misuse

The use of I.T. in general is always positive and necessary not to forget social and customary activities of a teenager in your daily life (studying, going to the movies, interact with the family, etc ...). The problem arises when performing an abuse by the young, so that such behavior carries a young insulation to cause anxiety, it affects your self esteem and lose the ability to control. These traits are inherent in any excessive tilt can become whether or not chemical addiction.

Risk Indicators

There are a number of indicators that are interesting lend special attention:

1. Depriving yourself of sleep to connect.

2. Pay less attention to other activities of daily living such as going to the movies, meet friends, socialize with family, school tasks, etc ...)

3. Watch for the network at all times and mood swings for lack of use or performance.

4. Watch for the network - Losing track of time when you are connected.

5. Use deception techniques on the use and network time.

6. Feel euphoria when you are in front of the screen and connected to the network.

7. Social isolation.

Allways-On Connections

Instant messaging systems such as WhatsApp successful not help much.

In some way these systems favor the abuse. The arrival of messages is noticeable whenever the device is connected not only by the intended recipient user, also by the surrounding environment at that moment giving a false sense of being "popular".
On the other hand the application favors control behaviors in the sense that it is known whether a user is on-line just by looking at the device. It can also cause more serious problems of social exclusion, misunderstanding, etc ...
In any case should not be confused the misuse of the networks with the same addiction.
An addicted person seeks immediate gratification and does not look at long-term negative implications.

Risk Factors

Features in personality and emotional states increases vulnerability psychological addiction. Highlights include impulsivity, dysphoria, impaired displanceteros stimuli, thrill-seeking and transgressive.

The abusive use of virtual communities may also lead histrionic and narcissistic behavior.

As mentioned at the beginning, personality problems are in many cases as triggers of these disorders, such as shyness, depression, ADHD or rejection of the image.

Prevention

Educate the teen to make a reasonable and appropriate use of new technologies. It would be the maximum, for it must be carried from childhood a roadmap on using them and work it out with the child. We must limit our use, not to publish or disseminate personal data and reviewing content provided to the child as well as instruction in the use of various existing, search engines, download legal content, videos, etc ...

There are a variety of software to monitor sites visited, initially, this option is not recommended. We should make use of the same in case of failure in working together and in environments that trust-family-teen educators truly is impaired.

In any case if prevention fails you have to reassure your teenager that can turn any environmental educator or family for help.

Disorder treatment

Keep in mind that unlike, for chemical addictions like alcohol abstinence is the goal in the treatment of addictions (except game) the goal is the re-learning to control behavior. It sets several stages:

Stage 1 provides a check on the time and frequency of use, and avoiding risky places, ie isolated rooms, parlors, uncontrolled spaces with free Wi-fi, etc ...

2nd stage once taken control of the behavior is performed maintenance therapy focused mainly on avoiding risk situations and environments to prevent relapse. Keep in mind that last one or two years, the person begins to experience increasingly consolidated perception of control over the addiction.

3rd stage must focus on the specific problems of anxiety or depression and make the necessary changes so that the person can deal successfully with the activities of daily living and get other rewards outside the virtual world. At this point it is noted that they have had very good results with cognitive behavioral psychological treatments.

In the re-education and re-training therapies are based on this type of addiction.

by iBonis Project

Sources: Mental Health and Radio-Diagnosis, Journal of Clinical Psychology, scientific press.

For more information: Cognitive behavior therapy with Internet addicts: Treatment outcomes and implications vol 10, 2007