Internet, young people and "digital dictatorship"

The development of digital technology, the expansion of social networks and the massive involvement of people, especially young people in them, is an undeniable fact. Either in quantitative or qualitative view. Undoubtedly, they are factors with internal and external effects on the life of society, with radically visible influences on changing the forms of behavior of our young people. If we objectively evaluate what has happened in the content of the Albanian school and the connections and relationships of young people with it, we can clearly see that in addition to the most important activity which is learning, now the phenomenon of connection, individual interaction and groups of friends has been added through mobile phones and uninterrupted communication through the Internet. Undoubtedly, the relationships of students, teenagers and young people with the Internet are conditioned by many factors.

With a social and individual nature, which have essentially brought differentiated conceptions of the goals, forms and ways of connecting and using technology. The initial idea that the Internet would open for all young people "only the common world of knowledge", seems not to be proven. The idea that the Internet would serve as a tool to narrow the differences between young people in the field of knowledge, opportunities for personal education, is not only not proven, but is increasingly becoming a "dubious expectation". There are children, teenagers and young people who use the Internet and its informational capacities for good purposes, increasing and deepening knowledge, as it is unfortunately happening that a large number of them are using it just for fun, gossip, bullying or even more banal and dangerous intentions of a sexual or even criminal nature. Especially the addiction to mobile phones is more pronounced among teenagers, addiction which is often associated with depression and low performance in school.

They have created a man, who is getting used to the whims of fashion or the next scandals, which he follows through social networks, which impress him less than in the past of the closed world without "online" communication technology. It is a fact that technology, mobile, social networks have united especially our youth with the world in an irreversible way. This reality has brought about something that three decades ago was blasphemy, truly unimaginable, because "...individuals of the same generation will often have more in common with individuals of the same generation in other cultures than with older generations. in the culture of their country". [Laws of human nature", p. 544]

There is no doubt that Albanian society is facing a new reality, in which the Internet has become an influencing factor in the lives of young people. Recent technological advances and digitized communication have changed the way our youth today interact, connect and communicate.

In schools and places of youth life, the cases of conflicts, violence, bullying, sexual harassment and many other age-related forms of the phenomenology of conflict have increased excessively. The problem is that most of the conflicts are not of a physical nature, but in the form of age-related relational aggression, aimed at damaging the reputation, violating the personality. "Relational aggression", which is exercised by young people through the Internet, is very disturbing and with difficult consequences. A bullying that is difficult for parents and teachers to detect, because it is done in secret, with the movement of the mouse. The studies that have been done on the safety of children and 'online' technologies have shown that the biggest source of danger that children face on the Internet is not so much pornography, but mutual messages with sexual content and harassment. In this aspect, the biggest impact is that of age relational aggression, which is generally realized through the connections that children and teenagers have and create through social networks.

The influence of the Internet and social networks on the personality of young people and teenagers has unusual emotional effects. Look at children when they communicate on the Internet and social networks: some feel happy and victorious from the results of 'online' connections, many others are irritated and very depressed by bullying or communication failures. Some have the perception that through social networks, the amount and intensity of communication, they had the opportunity to become "public figures, celebrities, influencers" in their age group. Meanwhile, for the same reason, some others feel depressed, are in a state of anxiety and worry from competitive defeats or age-related dislikes.

These extremes are causing some disturbing phenomena to appear in this broad social group such as children, teenagers and young people, who are involved in psychological and social anomalies, such as anxiety, despair, self-doubt, aggressiveness, feelings of revenge, etc.. There are social-psychological studies that have shown that the excessive use of the Internet and social networks, even of mobile phones for uninterrupted telephone communication, is one of the causes that induces in teenagers and young people personalized situations of the development of inner feeling of unhappiness. Psychotherapist, Professor Amanda Fox, is of the opinion that, "... social networks are associated with a decrease in personal well-being and less life satisfaction, because people have their eyes on others with a better life than them." [Will Storr, “Selfie – Uni i Uni”, p. 362]

I have analyzed in many cases the quantity, intensity and themes of the communications of young people and teenagers in social networks, and it is evident that an expanding phenomenon is encountered. Children and young people are provoked online with sexually suggestive conversations unacceptable for their age, accompanied by descriptions of sexual acts and open provocations about sexuality, which are trivialized in this type of dangerous anonymous, virtual and faceless personalized or faceless communication. identified. Let's not forget that our children and teenagers are also living and growing up in this society that is liberal and individualistic, in which we have a mixture of forms of bullying and traditional crime with electronic and cyber. Which is very dangerous and difficult to control.

Because as psychologists and sociologists say, young people and teenagers, but not only them, take as truth everything that could be false. In fact, young people often do not question at all what is served to them as truth by social networks. Unfortunately, not always young people and teenagers use mobile phones and social networks for information and good causes. This is the situation when they are subject to that general situation, which sociologist Ylvi Harari calls a relationship under the conditions of "digital dictatorship". Of course, the problems are not only for us, nor "closed" social concerns of a national nature. Today it has become quite clear that the problems and concerns that come from mobile phones and social networks are a global problem and the solutions, whether technical, social or educational and cultural, can and will only be solved globally.

But, this does not mean that we should not be careful to teach children, teenagers and young people to be careful with the publication of personal data such as addresses, accounts, movements, etc.. Because the dangers that come from networks social are many and complex material, psychological and sexual. The whole danger lies in the fact that online connections have the ability to hide the essence of things and appear not as they really are. This situation facilitates the penetration into the electronic communication of criminals, pedophiles, sex maniacs, fraudsters. In these conditions, it is necessary to strengthen, especially among children and young people, the culture of reporting material pressures or forms of sexual harassment. Undoubtedly, the problem of the relationship and connection between children and the more sophisticated types of mobile phones they use has become a serious social, pedagogical and psychological problem. Even, according to sociologists, mobile phones in the hands of children have taken the new form of "electronic drug", which has created a deep, almost pathological dependence, especially among children, young people, especially among our school students.

But, the problem is not just technological, or seen on the external side of the connection of young people or school students with mobile phones and social networks. The problem is broader. Because the consequences that are happening and those that are expected to happen in the future, are deeper and sometimes even difficult to predict sociologically in an exact way. Deep changes, expanding technological innovations have a social effect on the dynamics of growth, formation and behavior of our young people. This has led to an increase in the pace of life and their experiences, wanting to be compatible with their friends and colleagues, accompanied by new concepts for their forms, forms and dynamics of self-fulfillment of the concept they have for life at the time of today's postmodern.

Undoubtedly, technology and social networks have a positive impact on changing the pace of life of our young people, their desire to move faster and in accordance with the active dynamics of their time. But on the other hand, this is one of the reasons why it seems as if our young people experience certain existential crises, with themselves and with society. Because the more the rhythms of life increase, the dynamic needs for self-fulfillment among young people, the more they feel insecure in their realization. The Internet and social networks help to understand this situation and the dialectical features of the controversial action, which brings at the same time the understanding of the need for faster rhythms of youth life, but at the same time this technological progress also brings crises. Which are causes that often bring vanity and distraction of forces, sense of direction to our young people. These phenomena, which are simultaneously existential, but at the same time also surmountable.

Many problems in the lives of young people and teenagers have begun to be aggravated precisely by the effects of this "digital dictatorship" that has stuck them in their daily lives and that in many cases is accompanied by individual psychological and social consequences, such as sleep disorders and eating, weakening of cognitive functions, appearance of depression, and even in quite a few cases suicidal tendencies.