"There are already monsters in there" - chilling, but in the West, a good 50 (!) percent of the perpetrators of sexual abuse of children are minors.
Of course, this terrifying fact does not diminish the heinous crime of adult perpetrators for a single moment - however, if we focus "only" on adults, it seems that we can even forget about half of the victims.
"The government is tightening up the appointment of the heads of child protection institutions," comes the news on the one hand; "We will double the subsidies for each child, including the amount of the family allowance," promises the DK on the other hand.
Plans and ideas about how to improve the protection of children, especially with regard to the prevention and detection of sexual harassment, are pouring in - which is a very positive development, except that a not entirely negligible factor is sorely missing from the general public's thinking.
Latest data from Great Britain : England and Wales 2019 to 2022
Sexual harassment and rape committed by minors to the detriment of minors became 40 percent more frequent.
The number of "incidents" within schools increased by 81 percent; in 2022 alone, more than 2,700 such cases were reported - and experts say that the violent pornographic content available on smartphones, which is so easily accessible that it practically acts as normal mode for children, contributes to this frightening trend.
In the wake of all this, it's now on its way
minors are responsible for 52 percent of the sexual abuse of children ,
compared to the one-third rate a decade ago.
Which does not for one hundredth of a second diminish or relativize the even more serious crime of adult perpetrators - however, if we focus "only" on adults, it seems that we can even forget about half of the victims.
newspapers are reporting on undressing apps - nearly a tenth of the young people there have taken and even sent naked photos of others with the help of artificial intelligence; 14 percent of them do it specifically to humiliate someone, but the most common reasons are revenge or the recognition of peers. It is only in the victims that a wide variety of syndromes can develop because of it, up to suicidal thoughts (if we take the rates in Belgium as a basis, in the case of Hungary, this would mean approximately ten thousand affected per year) -
while an average adult might not even have heard of this kind of "deepnuding" phenomenon.
A little further on, in Switzerland and Italy show it again: the use of smartphones under the age of 12 does not bring benefits, instead it promotes addiction and results in poorer school performance, less creative media use, and even poorer digital skills later on.
On language tests, there is a "clear difference in performance" for those who had access to a smartphone before the age of ten.
In addition, the less educated the parents are, the more they tend to push mobile phones into their children's hands at a very early age, taking fewer precautions in the form of screening programs and the like than the computer scientist father from Belbuda - so this whole mania can even increase social inequalities.
Internet bullying can most easily find girls who are already disadvantaged
and it is precisely the lurker who grows up in an apartment without a bookshelf who is most likely to stare at online violence (instead of the exchange beetles that are killing pigs offline in the yard).
But feminists could also sound the alarm: research shows that early access to a smartphone affects girls' mental health and intellectual abilities the most, which
in many areas, even the "gender gap" may widen.
In Catalonia, a social movement was launched in autumn to ensure that children in as many families as possible receive their first smartphone at the age of 16; today, in nearly a hundred local organizations throughout Spain, parents are working together to ensure that there is no norm for providing children with smartphones, which causes peer pressure. They should rather get a dumb phone and press that grunt - that's pretty much how the innovative initiative can be summed up.
However, it is suspicious that since it is a set of problems spanning entire generations,
the countries that wake up earlier can even gain a serious competitive advantage over time:
it is no small feat if the few young workers (or potential parents) in an already aging society are at least not forced to mass therapy due to their massive mental disorders caused by the intensive use of social media, on the contrary, if possible they are recovered and creative, ready to focus for a long time and capable of their own to store certain information in your brain without an SD card (I really don't want to talk my students out, but when a high school student takes out his mobile phone and puts it in a reminder to bring a pen for the next class, it's amazing).
I admit: it would be difficult to decide overnight that family support and tax relief are only available to families where the number of smartphone subscriptions for children under the age of 16 (well, let's be ready to compromise: 14 or 12 in the first round) is zero - but for a few decades even that it seemed unimaginable that you couldn't hang out in the pub, and then it went through, even though the stake was less than the mental health and proper mental development of the younger generation.
It is not an argument that you have to learn to enter this world in time -
which forty-year-old today feels that his life has been fatally ruined because he could not spend his evenings with Insta or TikTok as a child?
Has anyone been traumatized by staring blankly out of their minds on the tram on the way home from school instead of pushing level 11,087 in Candy Crush Saga (strictly keeping the screen no more than 17cm from your eyes or it's not real)? At least there are few studies to show that it would be extremely difficult for over 16s to learn how to download apps. I'll go on: I was lucky enough to grow up in a household largely without a TV, completely missing out, for example, from Dallas, which was part of basic education at the time, and thus from social episode analyzes held during ten o'clock breaks.
Drama - anyone could think - his parents had a good time with the unfortunate man.
Yet now, decades later, the two former junior high school pals from Dallas are seeing a psychologist to process the emotional neglect they experienced as children.
Of course, it is also clear that serious sacrifice is required on the part of adults, including that when we take the train as a family, none of the parents should browse the news feed practically from end to end (for fear that if he stares out the window between Baracska and Pettend or starts tiresome bar koch with those going down, then you will finally lose the thread regarding the current situation in Avgyijivka) - so yes, here
you would have to give up certain reflexes.
However, if we say that child protection is the first, then comfort is at most the second.
The influenza statement that "monsters are out there now" sounds terrifying (unfortunately, they were there twenty, forty and even a hundred years ago), but even more dramatic is the fact that monsters are now (also) inside, in the children's room.
From this point of view, the current state of grace can even come in handy: so, since everyone is worried about children, perhaps it is more cheesy to say that the parents should install a filter and teach their children to use their mobile phones responsibly, good morning . Luxembourg is a truly prosperous and intellectual country, full of data protection gurus and bankers,
in comparison, almost a third of those between the ages of 12 and 16 there also engage in porn at least "occasionally". What can we do then?
Donating millions to a former victim is a very commendable and positive development, not a bad first step. To comb through the institutional system: it is absolutely essential. However, the issue of child protection and prevention is most likely to be taken really seriously by those who, in addition to this, in their own authority (be it a parent, an influencer, or a politician), are ready to do something meaningful against the distraction of smartphones during childhood, even at the cost of inconvenience.
