Milan Kundera wrote that “Speed is the form of ecstasy that the technological revolution has given to man”.
Without prejudice to this truth, one of the debates still open in modern civil society concerns the effects of this speed on the minds of adolescents.
The topic is broad and extremely delicate, especially because it concerns the well-being of the country’s young population.
The mistake that is very often made when we talk about the mental health of adolescents is to put the spotlight on social networks as if they were the cause of our children’s discomfort or, worse, the new technologies that push us to navigate in a sea of ever-increasing information. faster at the expense of understanding reality.
A few years ago, researchers at the University of Western Ontario’s Brain and Mind Institute carried out an investigation into the habits of around two thousand people to discover that the brain consumes information more and more rapidly and now has the need to move from one information to the other in the shortest possible time. Accomplices of this speed would be the social networks and new technologies that push us to navigate in a sea of increasingly rapid information at the expense of our attention. according to researchers, the abuse of technology is progressively reducing our ability to concentrate and several international studies agree that children who grow up in an environment rich in multimedia stimuli have a brain with connections different from those of those who have reached maturity without be subjected to such conditions. This necessary premise connects us to philanthropic nature of the new Leonardo ETS Foundation.
New because starting from January 2024 the institution, owned by the Leonardo Spa group, officially entered the third sector. Legally it means pursuing non-economic goals and acting exclusively with civic purposes, of social utility, carrying out activities of general interest.
Concretely it means share the scientific and technological knowledge of a large multinational through all existing multimedia platforms. In a country that desperately needs STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills, the Leonardo Foundation has defined a dissemination program to convey digital content adapted into a language accessible to young people. And to make ourselves heard by young people we must first of all be where young people spend most of their time: online.
The new website will be active from March 21st www.fondazioneleonardo.com which will host all the Foundation’s projects. The activities will be developed through collaborations with streaming platforms for the creation of podcasts and vodcasts, and collaboration with the main national and international television networks for the production of TV formats and the development of programs and documentaries for the dissemination of scientific and technological content.
The idea is to populate the network with captivating content for the new generations and at the same time land on education platforms in order to support the education of children from fifth grade upwards. Leonardo Foundation has defined a I agree with Eduliathe digital platform of Treccani dedicated to training, created to innovate learning tools and methods. Starting from the next school year we will populate the platform with new free content to support teachers during lessons and to offer students the opportunity to understand an increasingly complex reality in a different way.
We have signed one also agreed with the ANP, the National Association of Principals with the common intention of enhancing research and training activities in the school environment, carrying out promotion, support and forecasting functions in the field of technological and training subjects. Together we will work to promote and carry out studies, analyzes and experiments, in order to contribute to the renewal of teaching, a theme that we will make central in all our activities. The Foundation has equipped itself with a team of professional journalists to develop an effective and functional communication strategy for its objectives through a progetto Outreach (from the English “awareness raising”) aimed mainly at young people. With our digital productions we will convey accessible and at the same time rigorous messages capable of stimulating children to learn about STEM subjects. We will promote scientific and technological culture also through collaboration with television networks, institutions, research bodies, schools and universities.
All contents will be free, conceived for the common good, that of knowledge and awareness. The ambition is to shine a spotlight on progress in the belief that the speed cannot be slowed down. We can and want to impact the contents, fast yes. But quality.
* general director of the Leonardo Foundation