By virtue of the fact that I chair the Children and Youth Affairs Committee in the Polish Sejm, the most acute problem for me is the living conditions and development of the youngest social group. Children and young people are an integral part of society.
Therefore, it is impossible, when dealing with the affairs of society as such, to exclude these young people from the analysis and search for solutions. And vice versa – it is impossible to find remedies for the afflictions of the youngest social group without taking into account the condition of the entire environment in which they function.
These linkages, particularly taking into account the need to care for vulnerable groups, to which children belong by definition, are still not part of the canon of public policies in many countries. This relationship is clearly emphasized by UNICEF, which points out that all decisions made by governments, companies, organizations, and the entire institutional environment affect children far more than other groups, whether it be the climate challenge, digitization, or the lack of adequate efficiency in the social and healthcare system. The healthy and harmonious development of children and young people has a fundamentally important impact on the well-being of society as a whole. Following UNICEF’s reasoning, it should be noted that all sorts of social costs of neglect in this field are borne for many generations to come.
With all the hopes we have for the development of new technologies, we cannot overlook the obvious fact of living with the unprecedented pace of powerful changes they bring with them. In this case, traditional research methods that offer us the so-called evidence-based approach to many phenomena also fail to some degree. Due to the unprecedented pace of change, we are not always able to grasp cause-and-effect relationships.
After all, everyone feels and experiences the tremendous impact of the digital environment on the state of the psyche of children and adults, and, more specifically, the incompetent use of the world of digital media and the underestimation of the scale of pathogenic factors. From a psychological perspective, the specifics of our inquiries were expressed in simple terms by Mike Brooks:
“Our traditional tools for understanding social change are overloaded by the digital tsunami. […] The harsh reality is this: We’ve been using smartphones and social media for more than a decade, and we’re still debating their impact on young people. If we cannot reach a consensus on this issue, then on what basis can we pin our hopes on coping with the rapid pace of change that artificial intelligence is now bringing us.”
In the global debate, one of the clearest voices seems to be that of global American psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who published a book this year called The Anxious Generation. He has also established a social movement to rebuild the mental health of the public. This is because Haidt recognizes precisely that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the premature and excessive use of social media (as a result of children’s ownership of smartphones) and the mental health crisis, the most glaring manifestations of which are precisely depressive disorders and the drastic increase of suicide attempts.
Without going into the detailed solutions proposed by the well-known psychologist, among which is the need to create significantly more fully safe spaces in which children and young people can play, pursue passions and develop together without adult supervision, it is worth noting the method he advocates. Haidt argues that instead of finding fault with parents, teachers and other people, it is important to take into account the fact that socially we learn from each other through reconnaissance and imitation.
Therefore, the crisis we find ourselves in cannot be dealt with alone. Nor are central orders and prohibitions enough for us to do so. The key seems to be the community work (“collective action”) we must do from the bottom up in our local communities, discussing our approach to digital media and devices in homes, schools, offices and workplaces. He sees great hope in making a community effort for the public health of young people and beyond. We must contribute to the discussion going on at our tables – academic, parliamentary, corporate and domestic – about the need to take responsible action together to address not one, but the entire tsunami of psychosocial health crises we are currently experiencing.
The original version of this text was first published in Hodun, M., Sawicki, M., Tęcza, M. (2024). FundaMENTAL Health. Brussels: European Liberal Forum.
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