those who are anxious about contagion are more in danger – Corriere.it

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It is not only substances that hook us, even behavior can become something that you cannot do without because it gives pleasure and gradually becomes the only thought of the day. Being attached to the Internet is one of the habits that most often turns into addiction and in the last year the danger has grown: forced at home and with the web as the only contact with the world, from videoconferencing to work remotely to distance learning, many have increased the number of hours spent in front of a screen and in those who are most afraid of contagion this has become a sort of multiplier of the risk of technology abuse.

Italian research

This is suggested by an Italian research published in April in the Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, according to which the fear of the virus is precisely what modulates the correlation between personal difficulties and the appearance of a disturbance in the use of the Internet: in short, not everyone falls into the trap of addiction, but it happens more easily to those who are overwhelmed by anxiety pandemic. Other risk factors, according to data collected in China on over 20 thousand people, would be the lack of social relationships and the use of video games, which are very engaging and keep online more than any other activity.


Paradoxical effect

However, the equivalence between the amount of hours spent on the web and the appearance of non-immediate addiction, as confirmed by Daniele La Barbera, head of the Psychotechnology and New Media Clinic section of the Italian Society of Psychiatry: A fortiori today, we live a lot part of everyday life online, It has become difficult to separate the functional use of the virtual from the playful one, which is more at risk than it dependsnza. For some, having to stay at the computer all day can even generate the paradoxical effect of leading to the rejection of the network, because the hours on the web are suffered with annoyance: what matters, therefore, to understand if a pathological dependence on the smartphone is being established. , from social networks, from the Internet to evaluate how much experience is becoming a priority in mental dynamics. If the web is the first thought in the morning, if you are unable to do without it and feel more emotionally bound and connected to life online than to real life, it is slipping into pathological use.

Adults in the network

It is forbidden to believe that adults are safe: Internet addiction also affects middle-aged people that often, discovering social networks, they are captured as and more than kids. It is usually family members who realize that something is wrong and the signs must always be sought in changing behaviors: everything that is not connected loses importance, relationships with others are rarefied, if for some reason you do not have access to the network anxiety, restlessness, nervousness appear. Those who have ended up in a pathological relationship with smartphones and computers generally do not immediately recognize their discomfort, but developing awareness of the problem is the first, indispensable step to be able to solve it, as La Barbera specifies: If those addicted to technology do not feel that there is a dysfunction in their behavior, any intervention to get out of it doomed to fail. For the patient to admit it in order not to get into a fight, on the contrary, it is good to reduce conflicts: for example, if a parent takes away or threatens to take away the cell phone from the child, this tends to get defensive and not to admit the problem. Better to talk about it and try to understand the boy’s experience, for example by trying to understand what is so interesting about role-playing games that absorb so many thanks to their ability to involve and engage: especially if you intervene early, sometimes this is enough. to scale back pathological use. Furthermore, especially qWhen a very young person becomes addicted to technology, the disorder can go away on its own within a few months.

When therapy is needed

If the situation does not change despite the attempts at dialogue, it is best not to wait too long and opt for a structured psychological therapy because, in any case, the sooner you intervene, the better. The essential thing is to turn to a therapist who has a good knowledge of the online world who captured the patient, from TikTok to Instagram, to speak his own language and not be discredited as an interlocutor: if this happens, there is no chance of finding a profitable relationship and getting out of addiction thanks to therapy, concludes La Barbera.

June 11, 2021 (change June 11, 2021 | 19:04)

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