“The dictatorship of the Like and the growing tendency to push boundaries they submit us and the first victims are the young”. But rather than talking about faults, “now it would be better to talk about responsibility and awareness”. but the whole of society”.
So Giuseppe Lavenia, psychotherapist and president of the National Association of Technological Addictions and Cyberbullyingregarding the accident that caused the death of a child in Rome.
“Young people are often driven to seek more and more extremes to gain approval and attention online. Projecting themselves so strongly into the virtual world has led the young people involved to detach themselves from reality and create videos with increasingly borderline content, as the name of their social profiles indicates, and oriented towards overcoming the limit, of which the meaning is increasingly missing. Now they will have to face their responsibilities in real life today.”
The obsession with Likes “leads us to desire the increase of followers to feel like someone, even just in the ethereal world of the web”. In turn, the incessant search for followers, he specifies, “can create an emotional dependence that affects the perception of one’s identity and self-esteem”. But “more than judging this is the time to ask ourselves how to prevent other similar episodes in the age of social media”.
In this context, adds Lavenia, “The family of the influencer boys cannot be held solely responsible, but all of society must take on the task of preventing similar episodes. Fostering a culture of accountability and balance in the use of social media is crucial. It is necessary to adopt educational approaches that encourage healthy self-esteem independent of the amount of likes or followers”.
The goal is not to demonize social media or ban its use, but rather “to develop critical awareness and a balance between online and real life”, making it clear that “the search for virtual popularity can lead to tragic consequences in life real”.
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