Uso e abuso di apparecchi-video nei giovani: quali rischi per la salute.

Background: With the alpha generation, parents’ anxiety about young people’s use of the media has increased. Consumption is assumed to be excessive, resulting in sedentary lifestyles, psychiatric disorders, overconsumption of sexual content and suicidal behavior. What is it really like? Method: Besides the data from the HBSC 2014 survey (Health Behaviors in School aged Children) for Belgium, we carried out a bibliographic search (Medline, Scopus, Psycarticles, Psycinfo, Pubmed) with the keywords adolescent - internet and sedentary or suicide or family or sex * or porn * between 2014 and 2019. We selected 27 articles from original research and / or quantitative or qualitative meta-analysis. Results: Total consumption of different media (television, video games, internet) was stable until 2010 and increased significantly in 2014. A parallel increase in sedentary lifestyles has not been reported. The figures beyond which we can speak of overconsumption and the definition of what is “problematic use” remain controversial. 5% of young people have an unusual internet consumption and 97.5% of them meet the criteria of a mental disorder. The risk of overconsumption depends on 4 factors: family, personality, peer influence and media offer. In addition to these general risk factors, there are specific factors for the abuse of sexual content and for suicidal behaviors. For suicidal behaviors, the specific risk factors are in fact the same as those for young suicidal people outside the influence of the media.