THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE & ABDUCTION OF ADULTS

Today, The Grandma wants to share this following story by Roger Ballescà i Ruiz, and extends it not only to adults but also to teenagers who only live on social media; who base their self-esteem on the number of views they have; who have no criteria of their own because they don't make the effort to consider whether what they see or read is true or not; who let go of all their insecurities and complexes by writing toxic messages against other people; who have no ethical or moral respect for the lives of others; who have enormous emotional and social shortcomings that they believe they can make up for with followers and opinion groups; and who, without realizing it, are social prey for a future that will ignore them when they don't know how to recognize themselves beyond a tweet, a post or a like.

Several Mental Health projects nowadays treat these young people, already addicted, and the diagnoses are mainly grouped into 'the culture of the perfect image', 'body shaming', anxiety, depression, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), different eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

The challenge is great because as teachers or health personnel, we can only guide and advise these young people, but they must be the first to be aware of the situation and their families, the main ones involved in avoiding these situations and, if they are already real, in working to reverse them.

Social Media or AI are not bad per se, but it is the use that is made of them that determines their positivity or negativity: teenagers addicted to screens, famous people in their sectors who do not know how to control their degree of exposure to social media, companies that take advantage of easy customers to place their products to an audience hungry for content, or simply, adults who have begun to disappear...

 

No one knows exactly how or when it started happening, but one day, the children realized that the last of the adults had disappeared and that, definitively, they were alone as owls.

It was not a sudden or spectacular disappearance. No sirens, dramatic headlines or committee of experts. They did not all disappear at once in a big puff of smoke. They disappeared little by little, with a subtle, almost imperceptible discretion.

The first to fall were those abducted by the screens. They took up space, breathed and even said things. But their gaze escaped into a parallel universe of notifications, emails and cat videos. The children spoke to them but the words bounced off them softly.

Then the ones swallowed up by work disappeared. Adults with their agendas as a natural extension of their bodies who always promised to be there "soon", "in a while", "maybe tomorrow..." Adults in a state of promise.

Others disappeared when they decided to stop setting limits. They confused education with "do whatever you want but don't yell". They decided that children would self-regulate and would know how to decide for themselves what was best for them.

There were also those who dissolved into educational protocols, into documents full of arrows and boxes. Some were transformed into algorithms, others into international diagnostic manuals, where each discomfort found an appropriate label.

Finally, the most disturbing of all: adults who became children. They dressed the same, talked the same, wanted to be colleagues and called you "bro".

When the children noticed this, they celebrated with enthusiasm. Chocolate, unsaturated fats and screens without stopping. Not a single "no" in sight. Absolute freedom with sugary taste and video game music.

For a while everything seemed magnificent. But then things started happening.

Some children didn't know when to stop. Others didn't know what to do when there was nothing to do. Anxieties appeared without an instruction manual, sadness that was difficult to explain, anger that shot out in any direction. Without adults, no one helped put words to what was going on inside and give it meaning. No one said: "this is not right", "this is scary but it happens".

They discovered, with perplexity, that freedom without limits does not always liberate. That growing up without guidance is dizzying.

Some children began to play the role of adults, with little trace and little success. Others showed symptoms in the body, thought or behavior. Still others, sadly, faded away, without making a sound.

And the adults? Well, no one really knows where they are. Maybe they're still looking at a screen. Maybe they're working overtime. Maybe they're "on a random schedule."

The thing is, the children are still alone like owls, looking around and waiting for someone to play the adult again. And with each passing day, the question becomes more uncomfortable:

What if the disappearance of the adults wasn't a passing accident, but the natural state of things?

Roger Ballescà i Ruiz

Psychologist and psychotherapist

Centre de Salut Mental Infantil i Juvenil de Martorell

 

The challenge is great, enormous, colossal, but from the teaching and training point of view we do not give up despite being fighting against everything and everyone, despite suffering an enormous lack of prestige, despite always being the bad guys in all the stories, but we will continue working to reverse these situations and help train people of present and future generations because it is our profession, and therefore, our obligation as teachers and as citizens of the society in which we have to live.

More information: University of California

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