Confinement by Covid-19 triggered this practice among minors
The confinement in homes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, resulted in an increase in addiction to technology, especially among adolescents, who, by establishing links with “new virtual friends”, led them to also increase sending of images and text with sexual content, a practice known as “sexting”.
The foregoing was part of the Prima Lecture: “The work of the psychologist in addictions and the psychiatric field”, given by psychologist Pedro Luis Arango Torrejón, a specialist at the Yucatan Psychiatric Hospital and the Youth Integration Center (CIJ), held in the Conference Room of the Anahuac Mayab University of Mérida.
The graduate of the University of Havana, who has been practicing clinically in Yucatan for 26 years, mentioned that, although there are several addictions that prevail among adolescents (tobacco, alcohol or toxic substances), the most recent is dependency to mobile phones and devices.
He reiterated that the confinement to prevent further spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus caused stress in children and adolescents, having to take classes virtually, as well as in adults who transferred their activities from companies to their homes (home office).
Before students of the Psychology Degree from the Anáhuac Mayab University, Pedro Arango explained that the new generations of graduates from the area of mental health will have to treat this type of patients “They will have to establish new terminology in view of the event that is still taking place , in addition to proposing strategies for control and treatment.
Nomophobia
Nomophobia represents the irrational fear of being without a mobile phone. The term was coined in 2009 in the UK and comes from the terms “no-mobile-phone-phobia“.
Addiction to electronic equipment is growing among teenagers, who suffer from nomophobia, which is the irrational fear of being without a telephone or a mobile device, which causes them anxiety, ”he said.
The head of the Department of Psychology of the CIJ explained that, in the case of adolescents between 12 and 14 years of age, the confinement allowed them to find someone to talk to in real time and regardless of the distance, even up to “virtual courtships.”
