José R. Ubieto addresses a major social concern: digital mental health in adolescence. His book ¿Addicts or lovers? (Octaedro) gives strategies to parents and educators to recover the damaged links with those young people who live glued to their mobile phones.
How do networks satisfy teenagers?
They look, are looked at, exhibit, listen, are heard, shout, accumulate and retain (music, videos, photos), spew insults, assault, defame, recreate the void... All the drive grammar that Freud described and that we already know in the physical world.
They make TikTok, Instagram patches. But what happens when the initial euphoric effect wears off?
They go from frenzy to vertigo, through boredom. Sometimes they get nauseous and their bodies decay. They feel guilt, and even shame if they talk about it, for this overflowing enjoyment.
How does an addictive use differ from a reasonable one?
Overusing gadgets, abusing them and having an addiction are three different uses. The key measure does not lie in the number of hours, but in everything you miss: hobbies, face-to-face meetings, sleep, sport, reading. The addictive is what reaches the point of intoxication, as in Ferreri's film, La grand bouffe. The reasonable thing is to be guided by desire, which always leaves gaps and empty spaces where you can find other people and other interests.
The warning signs?
Sleep, appetite, relationships, class attendance (or poor performance) are disrupted and the mood is like a roller coaster. When you work for the algorithm non-stop and watch life go by without knowing you're living it.
He proposes that we talk about lovers, not addicts. Because?
Because an addict has enough with his object (toxic, bottle, slots) while teenagers need it to enjoy and love (dates, forums, Instagram). And because calling them that, making a pathology of a lifestyle, disconnects us from them and prevents us from being their interlocutors. Only in 3% of cases can we talk about addiction.
Write that the teenager establishes the loss of a mobile phone as a bodily mutilation. How should the parents take it away from him, like that!
Taking away their cell phone is not like extracting a tooth. We need to help them have free spaces for connectivity: sleep, family meals, outdoor spaces. This is not done all at once, it takes time. What's important is to make them want other things, too.
To what extent is there a parental responsibility?
Digital technology is not neutral. This is for a hammer, which doesn't talk to you, send you notifications, or suggest new uses. Cell phones do, and they easily steal your attention. Accusing teenagers, and subsidiarily parents, of use is to hide the fact that the responsibility is multiple and shared: administration, industry and professionals, educators, parents and children and teenagers.
But adults are also mobile phone junkies.
This is why there are no digital natives, because we are all born from a human desire and this other person who receives us provides us with the technology that we later use. Who doesn't like to stare, show off, touch the screen (150 times a day) or fall asleep to their dreams?
Paternal authority has been lost, he writes. This authority is now on mobile, and families are giving up and not re-educating.
We see how knowledge has been transferred to the digital, and more so now with AI. We carry it in our pocket and trust its advice more and more. We assume an authority that we no longer confer on some adults. We even delegate specifically human acts and decisions (sexuality, political choices, lifestyles) to mobile phones. Beliefs in traditional formulas are in decline.
Networks make teenagers more narcissistic and more lonely. At what point does this damage your mental health?
Health is knowing how to be with others and putting your body in that social bond. When the virtual replaces the face-to-face, instead of evoking it as a temporary solution, it disconnects us from ourselves and makes us psychologically more vulnerable. The idolatry of the self, so fashionable in some famous people, is the height of ignorance of oneself: we don't even know who is behind the image, its wild side, as Lou Reed would say.
Lack of sleep, fewer meetings with friends, fewer dates, less sex, more feelings of loneliness, more symptoms of depression... What would be the guidelines to go back?
I hope it won't be long before we become collectively aware of the need to regulate an absorbing and intrusive hybrid world. Not to insult technology, let alone to ignore it, but to follow Heidegger's advice to welcome its mysteries without renouncing our principles (equity, privacy, respect, solidarity). This affects us all and requires digital disconnection guidelines that I specify in the book.
From the lack of libido (for fear of not being up to it) to the initiation of risky behaviors, such as violence and harassment. When are the consequences irreparable?
The only irreversible thing is death, everything else can be changed if we maintain our desire to live and the bond with others. Human beings want authenticity and even if they are attracted to digital optical effects, they will always appreciate close-up more. This allows better treatment of fears and their effects: violence, risks...
There is an epidemic of eating disorders and teenage suicide. What do teenagers do when they self-harm?
Self-injury is teenagers' own anxiolytics: they serve to cut off the anxiety that invades them or bring them vitality when their spirits decline. The countless pages and videos of self-harm confirm their decision and give them ideas. But the final decision is yours.
"Figital reality (digital physics) has hijacked attention".
We read less and worse, lose skills for face-to-face conversation and reject the thought that arises from boredom because we consider it a waste of time. This is pathological, as it has intimate disconnection. Recovering it means relearning to converse.
To chat? First you have to teach them to be bored...
Boredom is the beginning of the solution, true. And conversation, our most valuable asset as speaking beings. This is where cooperative, loving, intellectual, joyful bonds arise. You have to learn it so it's not just blah-blah-blah and it has ingredients: active listening, humor, surprise, nonsense and poetry.
Is there anyone proposing to ban mobile phones before the age of 16?
The illusion of prohibition does not take into account psychic reality, because the drive (desire to look or be looked at) cannot be forbidden, only more interesting and cooperative destinations can be found for it.
And in schools?
What can be done, both in the family and at school, is to limit the use of mobile phones and firmly establish protected and connectivity-free spaces: meals, sleep, family rituals, reflective work, playgrounds. Only then will they discover other pleasures and experiences.
