Programme for the prevention of addictions to ICT, video games and online games.
The fourth year of the
ADITOK programme is presented, with a special focus on young people from 13 to 18 years old. For this fourth year, progress will continue to be made in creating material for action and visiting schools. The aim is to educate in the digital world.
Young people are a sensitive and influential risk group in the development of inappropriate habits
in the use of ICTs, which can lead to addiction, becoming a major problem in their health and relationships. In 2019, the Ministry of Health included technology addiction in the current Action Plan on Addictions for the first time.
Negative effects caused by ICTs have been described: loss of attention, impatience, lack of emotional
control, situations of low self-esteem (which is associated with the number of "likes" on social networks), high levels of insecurity, depressive symptoms, and may even affect brain development itself. All of this in young people who do not yet have sufficient training and maturity to have self-control over their behavioural habits and know how to relate to others.
Several psychological studies have exposed the attention deficit caused by the use of smartphones and
ICTs. According to the Ministry, one in five young people use the Internet in an addictive way. The digital world has become a substitute for the real world and young people devote their leisure time to ICT. The OECD describes that 22% of teenagers spend more than 6 hours a day online.
During the first year we developed guidelines and implemented the programme, demonstrating that
education plays a fundamental role.
To do this we must ensure that families, teachers and young people are aware of the technologies, not
only from the user's point of view, but also from the point of view of the control exercised by applications, social networks and video games, so that they can recognise how they affect their behaviour and lead to addiction.
But it is not only the technologies that are "to blame", there are also external factors, such as family problems, personal problems of self-esteem, personality, difficulties in social relations, factors that are disinhibited in the use of ICTs.
Emotion is one of the eight basic psychological processes. It can be defined as reactions to external
stimuli, which allow us to orient our behaviour and act quickly in response to the demands of our environment. The aim of social networks and applications is to maximise the so-called "engagement" with the user so that they spend more time using their services, as their business model is based on data
mining and advertising.
Social networks have been developed following the principles of psychology, sociology and neuroscience.
They are based on immediate reward and are therefore potentially addictive. We can explain behaviour according to Maslow's pyramid applied to the digital environment. According to a study by the Happiness Research Institute, 69% share images of the big events in their lives.
Developments and materials already developed in the previous three years have made it possible to: make
situations of ICT abuse visible to young people/families themselves; reflect on the business of applications and the use of personal data; educate about the risks, making them visible to young people; create a tool for assessing the level of ICT addiction by answering a questionnaire designed for this purpose;
educate on control and prevention measures; generate materials that are available and be a reference as educational materials prepared in the language of young people themselves and that generate an impact on their awareness.
Blue Beehive is formed by experts in education with experience in educational ICT in developments that integrate cutting-edge tools: such as augmented or virtual reality and video game programming. We also have a pedagogical team with experience in the field of emotional intelligence advising young people
with group dynamics and good ICT practices.
Developments and materials already developed in the previous three years have made it possible to: make
situations of ICT abuse visible to young people/families themselves; reflect on the business of applications and the use of personal data; educate about the risks, making them visible to young people; create a tool for assessing the level of ICT addiction by answering a questionnaire designed for this purpose;
educate on control and prevention measures; generate materials that are available and be a reference as educational materials prepared in the language of young people themselves and that generate an impact on their awareness.
The materials developed are available on the Blue Beehive website for all interested parties (parents, teachers, professionals), with a language adapted to young people, through comics or videos published on TikTok. There is the theoretical content that we use in the ICT Addictions workshops: activities to
reflect on the use, visualisation and explanation of the business of apps, social networks and the risks of behaviour that for a "like", or to reach a certain level, etc., create an addiction with consequences that can
become serious.
For this fourth year we will continue to address the issue of technological addictions. The awareness-raising work carried out last year will be continued with regard to the use of video games.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies the abuse of video games as a disorder and recommends limiting gaming among young people.
Giving visibility to the way they work, the consequences, the business they represent, as well as their
prevention in addictions and giving the right notions of statistics and lack of control will be objectives to continue working on this fourth year.