Imagine that a parent decides to hand over the keys to a Ferrari to one of their children. Apart from the potential damage, it is hard to conceive the idea that a reasonable adult would even entertain the thought of such an irresponsible action. Yet the dangers to which a child is exposed when given a smartphone are no less serious, though less obvious.
Those who design and manufacture them know this very well: the creators of social networks, iPhones and smartphones, and the executives of Silicon Valley platforms (eBay, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard and others) all impose clear limits on their children’s use of such devices, even if it may complicate their lives or make them unpopular. Their choices send an almost identical message, that social media is not for children.
Jaron Lanier, who designed startups later acquired by Google, Adobe and Oracle, has taken up the pioneering thoughts of Nicholas Carr and presented ten reasons for doing without social media (as distinct from the Internet and smartphones per se) because they manipulate attention and behavior and are toxic for users, preventing them from leading more peaceful and fulfilling lives.[1]
Steve Jobs banned his daughters from using iPhones and iPads; his successor at the helm of Apple, Tim Cook, did the same with respect to his own grandchildren. Bill Gates, in addition to setting a minimum age (14) for his children’s use, stipulated that they could use cell phones (not social media) for a specific amount of time per day (30 minutes). Chris Anderson, former editor-in-chief of Wired and now CEO of 3D Robotics, imposed the age of limit of 16, with no possibility of negotiation on the matter, even at the cost of being regarded by his children as a “fascist.” So did Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, scrupulously monitors his children’s electronic devices; Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube, allowed her children to use them only when they were able to lead a social life independently of them. The co-founder of Twitter, Blogger and Medium, Evan Williams, chose to give his children books instead of cell phones as presents.
Most of them also allow computers for strictly school purposes: no screen is allowed in the bedroom, and at the dinner table, to stimulate conversation, all devices were to be turned off. The schools their children attend do not use digital devices, but employ the more traditional paper, pen, blackboard and chalk. There they do not use tablets or ebooks, but the traditional exercise book. In the United States books are increasingly in demand by college students who value this medium and its aid to quality learning.[2]
This convergence of views and choices by such diverse people for the healthy use of electronic devices is impressive. Those who created the Web evidently know well its pitfalls, especially for younger users. Research conducted on the subject largely proves them right.
The insidiousness of social media when it comes to mental health was clearly shown in the documentary film The Social Dilemma, which premiered on January 26, 2020, at the Sundance Film Festival. Its value lies mainly in the numerous interviews with those who, in various capacities, worked in Silicon Valley and later moved away. Among them were Frederik Bolayons, Mia Kalifa, Alfred Nzani, Snoop Dog, Shoshana Zuboff, Travis Scott, Jaron Lanier, Anna Lembke, and Sophia Hammons. Again, despite the diversity of assignments and platforms of origin, a common concern emerges: the rise of a veritable invisible oligarchy, capable of subtly conditioning a consensus, combined with a lack of legal regulation by institutions.[3]
Those who have dealt extensively with this issue have pointed to an additional disturbing aspect that is increasingly prevalent among the very young: the link between social networking and mental fragility. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt significantly titled his investigation, which won him the Goodreads Choice Award 2024 in the Nonfiction category, The Anxious Generation, referring in particular to the so-called “Generation Z,” that is, those born between 1995 and 2005, who have had access to social media from an early age.
What until a few years ago might have seemed to be the usual alarmist viewpoint of the “apocalyptic” against the “integrated” (to borrow the famous clash coined by Umberto Eco), with the former applying to those who are seen as contemptuous of novelty, has now become nothing more than a sad fact, namely, that the use of social networks leads to a significant deterioration in mental health, especially among children and adolescents.
Significant Consequences
It has already been noted how much the Internet has fostered the spread of online pornography, with negative consequences for notions of sexuality, and of the situation of women in particular.[4] Haidt’s research focuses on a seemingly more innocuous phenomenon related to social networks. They, in their variety, share some significant characteristics. The first is the possibility of creating a personal profile (inserting text, pictures, music, movies), accessible to others, which can be edited at will. Exchange and interactivity with other users, not necessarily chosen by the author of the profile, and the tendency to post comments, ratings and reactions can take up an inordinate amount of time and take on ambiguous modes (fake identities, a tendency to deception, as well as self-deception).
Haidt specifically notes four serious instances of harm associated with this state of affairs.
1) Social deprivation. The healthy development of children requires that they play outdoors with their peers. Data about out-of-home recreational activities show a sudden decline after 2013 (with no significant difference from the lockdown period for Covid-19). At the same time relational and maturational difficulties are manifested that are so significant as to suggest a clear link between mental distress and social media use: “iGen [= the generation which developed with the iphone] kids grow up more slowly than those of previous generations: today’s 18-year-olds behave like the 15-year-olds of yesteryear, 13-year-olds like children of ten. Physically, modern-day teens have never been physically healthier, but on the mental health side they are much more vulnerable.”[5]
Even when children leave the house, their attention and ability to interact is constantly subverted by notifications or feeds that they keep on viewing and prevent a real change of register. In this way they are isolated even when they are together: “We have superficial friendships,” confides a Canadian student, “and superficial useless relationships. I often arrive early to class to find myself in a room full of thirty or more students who are in absolute silence, absorbed on their smartphones […]. This leads to even greater isolation and a weakening of one’s identity and self-esteem. I know this, because I have experienced it firsthand.”[6]
2) Sleep deprivation. Contrary to what was noted by Jean Twenge, there are harmful consequences for physical health as well. The brightness of the screen, which has become wider with the latest models, can cause serious problems with mood and vision, especially if one uses it at night. Doing so in fact alters circadian rhythms (the light from the screen sends a message to the brain that you are in the waking period), making it more difficult to sleep and later concentrate (with repercussions for school performance) and promoting the early onset of cataracts and maculopathy. For children, the risk is particularly severe because their eyes absorb more light than those of adults. Sleep deprivation affects mental health and leads to serious psychological consequences, such as attention and concentration deficits, low self-esteem, anxiety, irritability, depression, and suicidal tendencies. Research has established that when people try to turn off all electronic equipment after 9 p.m., sleep improves and better intellectual performance is achieved. This is the finding of a series of 36 studies on the link between social media use and mental illness.[7]
3) Fragmentation of attention. The habit of multitasking makes one’s ability to concentrate more fragile and discontinuous, especially when one has to perform demanding and not immediately rewarding tasks. It is as if the ability one has to be attentive is being divided into more and more numerous and thinner segments, giving one a continuous feeling of being elsewhere. This is easily understood when, for example, one is talking on the phone with someone who is doing something else. Trying your hand at many activities at once does not make you more efficient, but rather leads to doing more and more things badly.
Multitaskers strangely have more difficulty switching between activities, when this should be their specialty, without enhancing other skills, especially memorization, which requires recollection, concentration, taking one’s time, and the absence of distractions. “Children who spent more than two hours a day looking at a screen scored lower on tests of emotional and intellectual intelligence. Most disturbingly, it was found during the various studies that the brains of children who spent a lot of time on screens were different from their contemporaries. In some there was premature thinning of the cerebral cortex. Another study found an association between time spent in front of the screen and depression.”[8] Hence also is the worrying increase in attention deficit disorder (ADHD), which has become an epidemic in the Anglo-Saxon world in the last decade.[9]
Nevertheless, the tendency to multitask appears to be increasingly prevalent at all ages, with serious repercussions for education and work. In an open letter to Apple dated January 6, 2018, JANA Partners LLC (a firm specializing in event investing) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (the government agency that provides retirement assistance to Californian teachers), holders of about $2 billion in Apple stock, reported data from a survey of the Center on Media and Child Health and Alberta University on 2,300 middle and high school teachers. They noted in particular how, within 3-5 years of using digital technologies in the classroom, most teachers (67 percent) were concerned about the increasing inability of students (75 percent) to perform proficiently on an assigned task. In addition, 90 percent of teachers were finding a disturbing increase (86 percent) in students’ emotional management issues due to the multiple windows offered by social networks. The letter also referred to Twenge’s essay on increased depression and suicide risk (35 percent) by those who spent an average of three hours a day on electronic devices compared to those who spent one hour on them. When the average was five hours, the percentage rose to 71 percent. This was compounded by serious health consequences, such as insomnia, obesity, scoliosis, and diabetes.[10]
4) Addiction. Starting in 2009, Facebook introduced the ability to post comments and “likes,” soon imitated by other networks. This innovation draws on René Girard’s research on the imitative tendency present in human beings, which usually manifests itself in a triangular mode: the desiring subject, the desired object, and the mediator, the model through which one sees it represented, as in a mirror, which arouses the desire to imitate it or to oppose it. According to Girard, human action almost always finds its root in mimetic desire, a desire induced by others. This has been made evident by the introduction of “likes,” which has fostered the so-called “herd effect,” the tendency to post comments, positive or negative, because others have done so. In this sense Girard has been called “the godfather of likes.” His theories were taken up and applied to the social world by one of his students, Peter Thiel, who predicted that platforms such as Facebook would quickly become very successful because of the imitative desire to view something simply because others do.[11]
But the imitative mechanism also generates aggression and envy toward the other, increasing destructive consequences, more easily engaged in due to anonymity, invisibility and the lack of inhibitory brakes that characterize social networks and differentiate them from face-to-face relationships, typical of offline life.
How much the imitative drive can lead to destructive consequences is demonstrated by the chain of suicides linked to the Ask.fm site – short for Ask for me, created in Lithuania in 2010, modeled on the U.S. site Formspring – which is based on the free association of questions and answers expressed completely anonymously.[12]
Ask.fm is just one example, one among thousands of sites that swarm through the net and are too easily frequented by children and adolescents, who enter unaided and unprotected into a world too large and complex for them to manage responsibly, since they are in an age group in which there is a tendency to act before thinking, driven by emotion or the pressure of the moment. At the developmental age, human beings are driven by emotions much more intensely than adults, and this, in the absence of adequate limits and self-control capabilities – functions proper to the mature frontal neocortex – makes them very vulnerable to the mass of messages and comments that appear on the cell phone screen.
Life Devoted to the Screen
By now, almost all apps insert gimmicks of various kinds to capture the user’s attention and curiosity, so as to prolong the time spent browsing as much as possible and make money on data processing and advertising. It is easy to imagine the effect this can have on those with less willpower, such as children (a large proportion of them use smartphones as early as 5-6 years of age). The same children not infrequently complain about the difficulty of taking their eyes off the screen, because they are incentivized to spend more and more time on it, as if it were a kind of magnet for them.
A child between the ages of 8 and 12 years spends on the screen (smartphones, tablets, game consoles, TVs and computers) about 4/6 hours a day; an adolescent (13-18 years) up to 9 hours, which is more than a day’s duration of a full-time job. In addition, it should be noted that usage is higher in the low-income population, a similar addictive phenomenon is found with regard to food. The final effect is similar to driving on a highway full of inviting detours, with offers of all kinds stimulating curiosity and the desire not to miss “the opportunity.”[13]
Nir Eyal, who has worked for years in advertising and video game design, has called this technique “the hook effect” to lure customers, a series of possible distractions that are more or less rewarding: it may be a notification, a news story, a comment on what has been posted, all “hooks” that are particularly appealing to the young. Thus much of the waking (and what should be sleeping) time is devoted to browsing. Although not everyone falls into full-blown addiction, it is a serious form of manipulation of a child’s will and consent.[14]
Whistleblower Frances Haugen, who worked in Facebook’s Civic Integrity Department, published thousands of documents in 2021, showing Facebook’s use of “hook” techniques to induce children and teens to choose Instagram (purchased in 2012 by Facebook for $1 billion). In addition, after a Wall Street Journal investigation, Facebook decided to suspend a project called “Instagram Kids,” aimed at children ages 4 to 12.[15]
Smartphone addiction is no less devastating than other types of addiction; in fact, it too exhibits the symptoms characteristic of withdrawal (anxiety, irritability, insomnia, sadness). Anna Lembke, a researcher at Stanford University, notes in her study on new addictions among adolescents that “the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.”[16]
Are we therefore facing a crime wave? Those who produce and deal drugs are prosecuted and imprisoned; social network creators, on the other hand, despite having knowingly created addictive apps for the sole purpose of making a profit, continue their activities undisturbed, without public authorities exercising any effective control over them. Only when some news becomes public knowledge do we decide to intervene, as happened in 2018 regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The problem, as can be understood, is political as well as educational. Unfortunately, often the major absentee in this scenario is, disappointingly, government authority. This was seen in the Cambridge Analytica investigation. The most serious aspect of that affair was not that Facebook allowed its users’ data to be exploited to influence elections, but that the political authorities did not have the faintest idea of how social media companies normally operate.
Mental Illness Among ‘iGen’
The most urgent problem is to halt the growth of psychological distress among the younger generation. It is an established fact in the U.S. that the rate of mental illness among “Generation Z” has seen a worrying and sudden surge since the 2010. From 2012 to 2021, the percentage of teens (12-17 years old) receiving treatment for anxiety and depression increased 161 percent for boys, and 145 percent for girls, compared to what had been recorded up to 2010; the rate of self-harm, such as self-mutilation or attempted suicide, increased by 200 percent. Very similar trends are seen in other countries around the world. What is curious – or disturbing – is that this increase did not affect previous generations.[17]
It is usually believed that the use of social media is conducive to engaging in long-distance relationships, but these benefits are found in the case of those who also associate with such people in offline life. Moreover, research has not found any mental health benefits for very young users of social media. This is evident since the year 2012, when Instagram, Snapchat and Tik Tok began to spread.
The consequences of introversion and social withdrawal are serious, not only on the psychiatric side: there is increasing difficulty in entering the adult phase of life, accentuating the characteristics of the “sandman” noted by sociologist Catherine Ternynck, with obvious repercussions on the possibility of entering into stable relationships, making definite choices in life and becoming responsible for the lives of others.[18] This is a disturbing issue that could well compromise the future of entire generations and to which it is no longer possible to close one’s eyes.
Possible Remedies
The conclusions of the research come mostly from outside Italy,[19] but because of this, they can be useful in pointing to a possible trend and scope for intervention before more and more youngsters have to resort to psychiatric treatment on a massive scale. Again, this is not a matter of trying out an invention, but of going beyond superficiality and stereotypes: “Technology is by definition a human product and like all human products it can and should be discussed.”[20] Recognizing the seriousness and complexity of the problem, along with the need to think about early interventions to reduce present damage and prevent future damage, is a prerequisite for identifying possibilities for intervention.
First of all, it would be worth considering at what age it is appropriate to allow a child to use a smartphone. Of course, on the part of parents this involves facing exhausting difficulties in the face of the insistent demands of their (increasingly younger) children and the stock reasons they usually give (“Everyone has it, I’m the only one who doesn’t have it, I’ll be excluded, teased…”). But in these cases the Internet can be an important help, bringing together parents united by the same educational purpose – to protect the mental health of their children – and also getting help from those who have dealt with the issue in a competent way.[21]
The message coming from those working in the digital field, as we have seen, is unanimous: there is a need to protect childhood, so it is essential to establish a minimum age limit, and daily time limit, for access to social media (i.e., to have the ability to sign a contract to open an account and put videos, photos or recordings online), in order to protect the mental health of users. Although it is difficult to establish an equal age limit for everyone, it seems that the age most susceptible to possible harm reaches up to 11-13 years for girls and 14-15 for boys.[22] Based on these indications, in 2024 Australia banned the use of social media by children under 16, a decision that surprisingly found favorable feedback even in Italy from the young and very young: 29 percent in the 10-15 age group and 49 percent in the 19-24 age group.[23] This is a telling sign of how young people themselves experience discomfort with social media.
Another source of help can come from schools. As early as 2023, UNESCO called for a ban on the use of smartphones in educational institutions to counter distraction and cyberbullying. This warning was taken seriously by several schools, which have banned cell phone use during school hours (e.g., storing them in boxes or lockers), promoting specific courses aimed at the proper use of social media, highlighting the risks to mental health. As with regard to pornography, discussion is a key educational tool in promoting critical thinking.
It is equally important to increase outdoor activities, such as sports competitions, but especially free play and involvement with voluntary associations. As has been noted, depression is a disease peculiar to civilization. Engagement with outdoor sports, caring for physical relationships, guarding against brooding, sleeping at least eight hours a night, and a diet rich in omega-3 acids all help significantly in dealing with or preventing anxiety.[24] Time taken away from social media can be spent in a healthier way, increasing time spent in recreation and fostering relationships with one’s peers. This makes it possible to counter social isolation and individualism, which are the breeding grounds for mood disorders to flourish. Time and again it has been mentioned how rites of passage are crucial in helping children and young people face the challenges of reality in a responsible manner, trusting in their own abilities.[25]
In all of this, there can certainly be no shortage of political input. It is imperative to implement interventions to protect the privacy of citizens and to counter social lobbies and those with an interest in funding them at the expense of consumer health. The example of Australia was mentioned. Great Britain has also been moving in this direction for some time. Following the passage of the “Age Appropriate Design Code” in 2020,[26] several digital platforms, such as Tik Tok, in order to avoid closure, have been forced to put appropriate privacy filters in place so that minors are not contacted by persons unknown to them. Facebook, in turn, had to change its advertising policy for minors, and the Instagram platform in 2023 gave the option to hide the number of likes to content posted by users to obviate the emotional repercussions of the “herd effect.”
The lockdown period confirmed how online life cannot be considered an alternative to physical life. The time has come to take note seriously and reverse the trend.
Reproduced with permission by La Civiltà Cattolica.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32009/22072446.0525.1
[1]. Cf. J. Lanier, Dieci ragioni per cancellare subito i tuoi account social, Milan, il Saggiatore, 2018; N. Carr, Internet ci rende stupidi? Come la rete sta cambiando il nostro cervello, Milan, Raffaello Cortina, 2010.
[2]. Cf. N. Bilton, “Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent”, in New York Times, September 10, 2014; M. Richtel, “A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute”, in New York Times, October 22, 2011; P. Benanti, Il crollo di Babele. Che fare dopo la fine del sogno di Internet?, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), San Paolo, 2024, 132 f; G. Cucci, Internet e cultura. Nuove opportunità e nuove insidie, Milan, Àncora – La Civiltà Cattolica, 2016, 99 f.
[3]. As one of the interviewees, Tristan Harris, former chief ethics officer at Google and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, notes, “Never before in history have the decisions of a handful of designers, mostly men, white, San Francisco residents, aged 25-35, working at 3 companies, Google, Apple, and Facebook, had so much impact on how millions of people around the world spend their attention” (reprinted from B. Bosker, “The Binge Breaker,” in The Atlantic, November 2016). Cf. S. Zuboff, Il capitalismo della sorveglianza. Il futuro dell’umanità nell’era dei nuovi poteri, Rome, Luiss, 2023.
[4]. Cf. G. Cucci, Relazioni. Tra Covid e digitale, Milan, Àncora, 2023, 137-179.
[5]. J. M. Twenge, Iperconnessi. Perché i ragazzi oggi crescono meno ribelli, più tolleranti, meno felici e del tutto impreparati a diventare adulti, Turin, Einaudi, 2018, 6. Cf. V. Kannan – P. Veazie, “US trends in social isolation, social engagement, and companionship – nationally and by age, sex, race/ethnicity, family income, and work hours, 2003-2020”, in SSM Population Health 21 (2023) 101331.
[6]. Quoted in J. Haidt, La generazione ansiosa. Come i social hanno rovinato i nostri figli, Milan, Rizzoli, 2024, 150.
[7]. Cf. S. Garbarino et Al., “Role of sleep deprivation in immune-related disease risk and outcomes”, in Communications Biology 18 (2021) 1304; R. Alonzo et Al., “Interplay between social media use, sleep quality, and mental health in youth: A systematic review”, in Sleep Medicine Reviews, April 2021.
[8]. A. Carciofi, Vivere il metaverso. Vita, lavoro e relazioni: come trovare benessere ed equilibrio nel futuro di Internet, Macerata, Roi, 2022, 152.
[9]. Cf. J. Hari, L’attenzione rubata. Perché facciamo fatica a concentrarci, Milan, La nave di Teseo, 2023, 357-396.
[10]. Cf. J. Twenge, Iperconnessi…, op. cit., 132-169; A. Sheeman (ed), “Letter from JANA Partners & CalSTRS to Apple Inc.”, in California State Teachers’ Retirement System (https://thinkdifferentlyaboutkids.com/index.php?acc=1), January 19, 2018.
[11]. Cf. P. Benanti, Il crollo di Babele…, op. cit., 165-170; R. Girard, Menzogna romantica e verità romanzesca. Le mediazioni del desiderio nella letteratura e nella vita, Milan, Bompiani, 2009; P. Thiel – B. Masters, Da zero a uno. I segreti delle startup, ovvero come si costruisce il futuro, Milan, Rizzoli, 2015.
[12]. Cf. G. Cucci, Internet e cultura…, op. cit., 88-91.
[13]. Cf. “Screen Time and Children”, in www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Children-And-Watching-TV-054/; “The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Age Zero to Eight”, in www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2020_zero_to_eight_census_final_web.pdf; “Screen time report 2022”, in www.uswitch.com/mobiles/screentime-report/. Cf. J. Haidt, La generazione ansiosa…, op. cit., 145 f.
[14]. Eyal himself, in his book Creare prodotti e servizi per catturare i clienti, devoted a paragraph to the possible manipulative drift of the Hooked strategy. In a later book (Come diventare indistraibili) he acknowledged that he himself had fallen into the traps of distraction, and attempted to recognize its causes and counter the erosion of attention.
[15]. Cf. G. Wells – J. Horwitz – D. Seetharaman, “Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show”, in The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2021; F. Haugen, Il dovere di scegliere. La mia battaglia per la verità contro Facebook, Milan, Garzanti, 2023.
[16]. A. Lembke, L’era della dopamina. Come mantenere l’equilibrio nella società del “tutto e subito”, Macerata, Roi, 2022, 1.
[17]. Cf. M. Askari et Al., “Structure and trends of externalizing and internalizing psychiatric symptoms and gender differences among adolescents in the US from 1991 to 2018”, in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 57 (2022/4) 737-748; J. Twenge et Al., “Worldwide increases in adolescent loneliness”, in Journal of Adolescence 93 (2021) 257-269. Much research has been done in this area. Cf. J. Haidt, La generazione ansiosa…, op. cit., 32-56.
[18]. “For the past few decades, we have seen young people trudging along the fringes of adult life without coming to enter it. They seem to be in the grip of a threshold anxiety that they cannot cross” (C. Ternynck, L’uomo di sabbia. Individualismo e perdita di sé, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, 2011, 127).
[19]. As for Italy, the data, although less striking, reveal the same trend: 27 percent of young people (10-24 years old) have only virtual relationships; 49.3 percent recognize that social networks have a strong influence on them, with a big difference between girls (65 percent) compared to boys (31 percent). 34.2 percent feel sadness or dissatisfaction after browsing; 90 percent of the 19-24 age group note an increasing inability to communicate in offline life due to too much time spent on the social dimension (cf. Il Sole 24 Ore Scuola, November 29, 2024).
[20]. J. C. De Martin, Contro lo smartphone. Per una tecnologia più democratica, Turin, Add, 2023, 179.
[21]. Very instructive in this regard is the book by S. Garassini, Smartphone. 10 ragioni per non regalarlo alla prima Comunione (e magari neanche alla Cresima), Milan, Ares, 2019.
[22]. Cf. A. Orben et Al., “Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media”, in Nature Communication, March 28, 2022; J. Haidt, La generazione ansiosa…, op. cit., 282 f.
[23]. Cf. “L’Australia vieta i social agli under 16, in Italia la metà dei giovani sarebbe d’accordo, ecco perché”, in Il Sole 24 Ore Scuola, November 29, 2024.
[24]. Cf. J. Twenge, Iperconnessi…, op. cit., 352 f; S. Sassaroli – R. Lorenzini – G. Ruggiero (eds), Psicoterapia cognitiva dell’ansia. Rimuginio, controllo ed evitamento, Milan, Raffaello Cortina, 2006.
[25]. Cf. G. Cucci, “Il suicidio giovanile. Una drammatica realtà del nostro tempo”, in Civ. Catt. 2011 II 121-134.
[26]. “The Code specifies that when used by a child, online services must use the highest privacy settings by default unless there is a compelling reason not to do so, taking into account the best interests of the child. This includes not allowing data access by other users, location tracking or behavioral profiling (such as algorithmic curation and targeted advertising, or using data in a way that incentivizes children to stay engaged), “ICO’s Children’s Code applies from today – what you need to know”, in Eversheds Sutherland. Retrieved, September 2, 2021.
