UNR psychologist Ana Bloj analyzes the impact of technology use on the subjectivity of children and adolescents.
The use of technology from the earliest childhood and the impact it can have on the subjectivity of children and adolescents is a global problem today. "We are only now seeing the effects of being born with screens in adolescents," says Dr. Universidad Nacional de Rosario Ana Bloj.
Although we live in a globalized and technological world, Professor Arias believes the term "adolescence" should be used to recognize the enormous diversity of this population group based on the space they inhabit, their living conditions, and their diverse social and cultural backgrounds.
For example, regarding the highly successful Netflix series "Adolescence," Bloj is surprised by how long it takes for adolescents and adults to embrace, something that in Latin America would be immediate. "This is important because it relates to the place the adolescent body occupies in interpersonal relationships. Mobilizing the body is also a way to take kids out of virtual reality," she emphasizes. "Hugging involves embracing a series of sensations that are sometimes easier to reach than with all the words in the world."
For the psychologist, it's very difficult to think about adolescence without considering what childhoods they had because what happens at this stage is that the psychic apparatus disassembles again, and a process of reassembly must be undertaken to reach adulthood. Here, "all the ingredients that formed part of that child's psychic makeup are the mortar that the adolescent will use to build themselves."
And the question arises: What symbolic, imaginary, and fantasy resources does this adolescent have to psychically process what is painful, frustrating, and impossible? How does he or she deal with reality? How did this child, who reached adolescence, develop the principle of reality that networks come to undermine and invite into a hybridity that inhabits psychic life?
In this sense, he recognizes that "we are no longer exclusively immersed in material reality, but also in a virtual reality that is intertwined, and this creates a different type of psyche and a different encounter with frustration." He explains that when symbolization and imagination become more acute in the psyche due to certain types of virtual content that occur during childhood and adolescence, young people lack sufficient symbolic resources to accept that reality.
And he gives an example: “It's one thing to say 'I want to kill him because he bullies me,' but I'm not going to do it because I know it's forbidden, because I'm a cultural individual and I know there's a responsibility for my actions. It's another thing to say 'I want to kill, and I kill,' as happens in the series, where, moreover, the protagonist doesn't even realize the fact of having killed. "There's a hybridization that produces other feelings of reality."
According to a report on the "Situation of Children and Adolescents" published in 2023 by UNICEF Argentina, approximately 200 adolescents were victims of bullying that year, and more than 400 of their peers suffered from it.
Peer violence is a problem that affects the overall health of adolescents, as established by Law 26.892. Bullying occurs in different forms when one or more people are subjected to systematic and sustained abuse over time in an unequal power relationship. This form of abuse includes physical abuse, theft, breakage of materials, offensive nicknames, and exposure of private life, among others.
When transferred to the digital environment, it is called cyberbullying and refers to repeated aggression toward one or more people within digital media (uploading photos without consent, disseminating information or images intended to embarrass someone, sending threatening messages through social media). Despite the specific characteristics of an act of peer violence, each act is part of a complex family, social, economic, cultural, and institutional framework that occurs within a specific context.
Parents blocked
Regarding the role of adults, the teacher refers to "blocked parents" in a double sense. On the one hand, because technology is designed to block parents, and at the same time, given the advancement of technology and the connection children form with it, adults fail to understand the logic.
For the psychologist, there's another trap in technology: believing that because they're at home, they're safe when in reality they're somewhere else. "There's a virtuality that enters through the screen, and young people are in a space that adults don't control, don't notice, and don't know about." For example, placing bets online.
Regarding parental responsibilities, one is digital parenting, that is, including the digital world. Another relates to the living conditions of adults and their role, given that in many cases they shirk the responsibility of connecting through dialogue with adolescents. "Adults, also caught up in a complicated life, evade this duty, this role of supporting adolescents' processes, and leave them very alone."
As the professor of the "Interventions in Childhood and Adolescence" course in the Psychology program, Dr. Bloj explains that from the very first classes, students address the current conditions of subjectivity production, the problems generated by the use of screens, and how this shapes subjectivities in both the individual and institutional and community spheres.
Last year, the Faculty of Psychology of the UNR, together with Unicef Argentina and the National Directorate of Mental Health and Addictions, published a document entitled “Guidelines for the initial listening and support of adolescents in primary care” In this article, they discuss the importance of listening to adolescents for the first time and offer some guidance on “how to approach, talk to, and accompany them, something that is being lost.”
Based on these guidelines that arose from concerns, problems and interests presented by the adolescents themselves, together with the Multimedia Communications Directorate of the UNR, the Podcast “First Listen” which can be accessed on Spotify.
Journalist: Victoria Arrabal/Photographer: Camila Casero