Children and adolescents increasingly alone in the era of the “dictatorship” of social media and the web

The sociologist Francesco Pira, associate professor of sociology of cultural and communicative processes at the University of Messina, will be a guest tomorrow at 12.25 of Il Settimanale the national rotogravure of Tgr Rai which deals with current affairs, investigations and insights on major social issues . Tomorrow the interview he gave to the journalist Monica Busetto, curator of the program, on the topical issue: the loneliness of children and adolescents during the pandemic will be broadcast on national Rai Tre.

The pandemic and physical isolation seem to have exacerbated pre-adolescents and adolescents’ insecurities and frailties, feelings of fear and discouragement fueled by the dependence on acceptance and approval by the peer group that occurs only in social dynamics. Themes addressed in his latest research book “Sons of the App” published by Franco Angeli in the Sociology series. The essay contains the data of the latest research by the Sicilian university professor: the third chapter is in fact entirely dedicated to the results of the online survey “My way in the time of Covid.” Conducted in the period April – May 2020, it involved a total of 1,858 girls and boys from lower and upper secondary schools who answered an online questionnaire consisting of seventeen questions.

“The data of my research – underlines Professor Pira – are in line with the Unicef ​​U-Report survey on young people, which generated more than 8,000 responses and found that over a quarter felt anxious, 15% depressed.

Professor Pira, on Wednesday 14 April 2021, will open the proceedings of the International Conference organized by the Department of Journalism and Communication of the University of Warsaw on “Cybersecurity, Covid 19 and disinformation” by presenting the research data in the first panel coordinated by Professor Urszula Soler. The event will take place on the Teams platform.