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Social: gli effetti dello scroll infinito sui minori - PresaDiretta 18/10/2026 — Transcript

by Rai · 2,375 words · 368 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:03His name is Alex, he's 2 years old, and
0:06he's back at this University of East
0:08London lab to do what he does every day
0:11at home: watch a screen.
0:13>> Do you want to watch some TV?
0:15>> Yes.
0:16>> He's already off.
0:18>> Leading the experiment is Katy Dobny.
0:20>> Do you remember this? Did you wear it
0:22last time too? A child psychologist and
0:24neuroscientist who has been studying
0:26for years what happens to children's
0:28bodies while they watch videos online.
0:32Alex knows the routine by now. A sensor
0:35on his chest to record his heart rate.
0:38A special cap on his head.
0:41>> Now I'll put this on your head. Okay.
0:43Here we go. Thank you. You look so cool
0:46. The EEG measures all the electrical
0:50activity produced by the brain. This
0:54way, we can see what Alex's brain is
0:56doing and how it responds to what he
0:57sees on the screen. And then a patch
1:02between his eyes to track how his gaze
1:04explores the screen.
1:07>> Alex, there will be some dots on the
1:08screen in a moment. Can you follow them
1:11with your eyes?
1:11>> Yes.
1:12>> Thanks. And as Alex gets lost,
1:15hypnotized by his favorite cartoons,
1:18the researchers get ready to monitor
1:20the experiment second by second.
1:24Afterwards, we'll be able to see which
1:26elements on the screen attract Alex's
1:28attention the most. And based on this
1:33data, we can observe how his body
1:35reacted to the information and what
1:37effect it had on his brain activity and
1:40nervous system. Alex is no exception.
1:53More than 75%of children under 2 years
1:56old, in fact, use digital devices daily
1:59. In short, they handle screens while
2:01they are still learning to walk or talk
2:04, and between 2 and 5 years old, 65%
2:06systematically exceed the WHO's
2:08recommended safety threshold of less
2:11than one hour a day. Where do they
2:13spend all this time? The undisputed
2:16kingdom is called YouTube Kids.
2:18>> It's coming.
2:20>> There it is.
2:21>> This is one of the most popular ones on
2:23YouTube.
2:23>> Yes. 10 or 15 years ago, children
2:26tended to watch longer content. A show
2:30episode lasted about 20 minutes. The
2:33number of characters was much smaller,
2:36the pace was slower, and the
2:38information was much less complex. In
2:41reality, from a neuroscientific
2:43perspective, that is exactly what very
2:45young children need. For example, a
2:49one-year-old can only process one new
2:51piece of information per second, so
2:53anything that passes before their eyes
2:55and disappears in less than a second,
2:57as often happens in the videos they
2:59watch online, is not actually processed
3:01or registered. The most viral videos
3:05that capture children like Alex
3:07function practically like digital
3:09hypnosis, and their parameters show it
3:11too. Their gaze is glued to the screen,
3:14but their brain cannot fully register
3:16all the information. When something
3:19moves in our field of vision, we cannot
3:22help but notice it. It happens to us
3:25adults too, but unlike children, we can
3:28realize it and redirect our attention
3:30elsewhere if we see there's no useful
3:33information for us. For young children,
3:36however, it is much harder to inhibit
3:39this response. When you show a child
3:42content on a screen that moves very
3:44quickly, they stop moving immediately,
3:47and whether they are crying or even
3:49laughing and happy, any emotion
3:51vanishes instantly because they are
3:53captured by what they see on the screen
3:55. In fact, many parents in more chaotic
3:58moments think, "Okay, I'll give them
4:00the phone so they'll calm down for a
4:02while." And it's true, it keeps them
4:05perfectly still and turns off any
4:07emotion. The problem, however, is that
4:11when they watch content that moves too
4:13fast for them to process and understand
4:15what will happen next, a signal is sent
4:18from their brainstem that says, "I am
4:20in a dangerous situation; things are
4:22moving too fast and I cannot predict
4:24what will happen." This signal is sent
4:29to the heart and lungs to overactivate
4:31the nervous system and prepare them for
4:33a fight-or-flight response, as it is
4:35technically called. From the outside,
4:38they seem calm and motionless, but in
4:40reality, they have a higher heart rate.
4:44This means they are in a perpetual
4:46state of defense. It is a kind of trap;
4:51they cannot move because their
4:53attention is captured, but inside they
4:54are agitated. It is captured, yes. They
4:57call it the attention trap. Their
5:01attention is literally captured by what
5:03is on the screen in front of them, but
5:05at the same time, this could lead to an
5:07overactivation of their nervous system.
5:10>> This is content that children today see
5:12every day. What will happen to them as
5:14they grow? If a child stays in this
5:16state for a long time, it risks
5:18becoming their new normal, their
5:20baseline physiological condition. The
5:23danger is that all this translates into
5:26more problematic behavior and children
5:28who cannot manage their emotions when
5:31they go to school. It's a blue tree,
5:35come on, play with me.
5:38>> Before algorithms and online platforms,
5:40the video content a child encountered
5:43was this: children's TV, slow and
5:45repetitive, where a clay penguin would
5:48only say one word. No,
5:52>> the Teletubbies would wave at the sun
5:54for 10 minutes.
5:55>> Bye-bye.
5:56>> And on Art Attack, it took a whole
5:58afternoon to make one craft.
6:00>> We will only need lots of newspaper and
6:03some cardboard from boxes.
6:04>> Oh, you must excuse me.
6:07>> Forget everything. Today, even little
6:10ones have moved to iPads and
6:11smartphones, and the content dedicated
6:13to them is designed by copying the
6:15grammar of social media. of monsters.
6:18>> Short videos, bits and pieces of
6:20stories that dart here and there like
6:22on a TikTok feed. No more pauses, no
6:25downtime.
6:29>> To understand how viewing habits for
6:31the youngest have changed over the
6:33years, Times journalist Matilda Davis
6:34created a special computer program
6:36capable of analyzing the most popular
6:38children's videos. Basically, it
6:42analyzes the colors present in each
6:44frame and converts them into a
6:45numerical value based on brightness and
6:47saturation, and it can also detect the
6:49amount of movement. Matilda chose some
6:54of the most-watched children's shows
6:56from among those produced for TV and
6:58those published on YouTube. In fact,
7:01half of the top 10 most-clicked videos
7:03on the online platform are intended for
7:05them. The first is Baby Shark, with a
7:09staggering 17 billion views, the
7:11absolute record on YouTube.
7:16>> While "The Wheels on the Bus" from the
7:18Cocomelon channel is in third place
7:21with 9 billion views. Many people here
7:29in the UK use the word "Cocomelon" as a
7:31synonym for something you can't look
7:33away from, which already says a lot.
7:37What I found interesting is the amount
7:39of movement. If you look at the clip,
7:42the camera never stops moving; it keeps
7:45swaying, bouncing, or rotating around
7:47the scene, so the brain never has a way
7:50to rest. And for a child, it is not
7:55necessarily clear where they should
7:56look because everything is moving. It
7:59gives a bit of the feeling of being on
8:00a boat. This is produced by the same
8:04company that produces Cocomelon. It is
8:09based on a single character, Blippi,
8:11played by an actor who does children's
8:13entertainment. The camera constantly
8:16sways, rotates, or moves around the
8:18character, and Blippi is also
8:20constantly in motion, so if you watch
8:22it too long, it can cause a bit of
8:24vertigo. The exact opposite of what
8:30children saw on TV 20 years ago. Unlike
8:33content like Cocomelon, you notice that
8:35the only thing moving is the character.
8:39The background remains completely
8:40static, so it is much easier to follow
8:42the narrative because you know exactly
8:43where you need to look. In online
8:48videos for children, in addition to
8:50movement, camera cuts also multiply. If
8:54in the old TV show there is one every
8:5617 seconds, in the YouTube video the
8:58image changes every second and a half.
9:02And so, sudden variations in brightness
9:05also increase. In online content, there
9:08are three times more compared to TV
9:10programs. All visual stimuli that glue
9:13eyes to the screen. YouTube content
9:16creators for children want to capture
9:18attention and hold it for as long as
9:21humanly possible. And that is precisely
9:24why they resort to all these visual
9:26gimmicks. Yet, when we look at YouTube
9:28Kids, we wonder: if they designed it
9:31for children, is there some value or
9:33educational goal? When children's TV
9:36took its first steps on traditional
9:38channels to convince parents it was
9:41worth putting kids in front of the
9:43screen, those programs were studied in
9:45minute detail. The goal was to teach
9:49children new experiences and words, to
9:51expand their vocabulary, which is
9:53something that doesn't happen at all on
9:55YouTube. There are studies that show
9:59how children who spend a lot of time on
10:01YouTube or watching online videos tend
10:03to have a more limited lexicon and
10:05lower emotional regulation skills.
10:09There is no reason why YouTube creators
10:11should strive to produce educational or
10:14stimulating content for children. At
10:17the end of the day, that is not what
10:19captures their attention the longest.
10:24But what happens when they grow up?
10:26When they move from cartoons on YouTube
10:28to the endless flow of social media. In
10:32London, researchers at Revealing
10:33Reality literally put themselves behind
10:35the kids 'pupils, trying to watch what
10:37happens on the screen as they scroll
10:39non-stop with their fingers on TikTok.
10:43And they named the study just that:
10:45Infinite Scroll. The infinite scroll.
10:48>> Essentially, it means that the sequence
10:50of videos never ends. You can keep
10:52scrolling and there will always be new
10:54content ready to appear at the bottom
10:56of the screen. It was initially
10:58developed by TikTok, then adopted by
11:01Instagram, which called it Reels, and
11:03it is also present on YouTube, where it
11:05is called Shorts. There is also a
11:08version on Snapchat, and even LinkedIn
11:10has started doing it, and Netflix has
11:12now released its own version of
11:13infinite scroll. For his research,
11:18Revealing Reality managing director
11:20Demon Deonno convinced 23 teenagers
11:22between 14 and 16 years old to do
11:24something their parents would almost
11:27never allow. Recording their smartphone
11:31screen minute by minute while they
11:33scroll.
11:33>> With their consent, we also installed
11:35an application on their phones that
11:37provided us with a complete picture of
11:39their activities. Which apps were they
11:41using? At what time and for how long?
11:44And here is what a teenager has in
11:46front of their eyes on TikTok. The
11:49finger stops for a fraction of a second
11:51, then slides away. Content flows in a
11:54hypnotic, endless feed. A makeup
11:57tutorial, the beginning of a videogame,
11:59an advertisement, a hint of music. All
12:02in the space of fractions of a second.
12:05>> Only a very small percentage of videos
12:07is watched for 5 seconds or more. Kids
12:10watch most videos for barely a second
12:12before scrolling to the next, and so
12:15many of them consume this content
12:17non-stop for one, two, three, four, and
12:20sometimes up to eight hours a day.
12:26>> This is one of the kids you followed.
12:29>> Yes, this is Tom. As you can see, on
12:32this day he spent a total of 6 hours
12:33and 39 minutes on his screen, and we
12:35are only talking about his phone.
12:38That’s the daily average for a week,
12:40so even considering the time spent at
12:42school,
12:44>> in the 6 hours a day spent scrolling,
12:47Tom watches up to 945 TikTok videos;
12:50that’s almost 30,000 a month. A binge
12:54of content that often happens at night,
12:57and the kids themselves are now
12:58starting to realize the impact this
13:00endless scrolling has on their lives. I
13:05am addicted to my screen, obviously,
13:07like many kids my age. You can watch
13:11anything, and if you don't like it, you
13:12just scroll past it; it's so addictive.
13:15Instead of sleeping, I scroll on TikTok
13:17. We are all guilty of going on TikTok
13:20and saying, "I'll be on for half an
13:22hour max," but then we end up staying
13:24for hours. It's addictive and it's
13:27insidious.
13:28>> The kids used the word "addiction" a
13:30lot, and they did so completely
13:32spontaneously, without us suggesting it
13:35to them. They also constantly talked
13:38about "brain rot," and they showed us
13:40those very videos that are meaningless,
13:42sometimes a bit crazy, and described
13:44how they made them feel, defining that
13:47sensation as, indeed, having "mushy
13:49brains." And as for the content they
13:52shouldn't be seeing,
13:54>> there continues to be content that
13:56minors should never have access to,
13:58from things related to body image for
14:00boys and girls, all the way to content
14:02about gender identity. Many of these
14:05young people register as adults and
14:07therefore receive ads for gambling or
14:10alcohol, and then there is also
14:11sexually explicit content.
14:16>> And what evidence have you found
14:18regarding their mental health?
14:19>> From our results, it seems that TikTok
14:21usage is correlated with a worsening of
14:24mood. They never report feelings of
14:26real joy or excitement.
14:30>> At the University of Cambridge, we meet
14:32Emy Orb. A neuroscientist who leads the
14:36Digital Mental Health research group,
14:38she explains that for scientists,
14:40it’s a race against time. Platforms
14:43change and algorithms update before
14:45they even have the chance to study
14:47their effects. Between the first car
14:51put on the road in the UK and the
14:53ten-millionth sold, I believe about a
14:55century passed. In those 100 years, we
15:00learned how to address road safety. We
15:03introduced seatbelts, vehicle
15:05inspections, and driver's licenses. For
15:08TikTok, instead, in the UK we went from
15:11the first user to 10 million in less
15:14than 2 years. Science has sped up, but
15:17it still remains slow compared to such
15:19a speed. The real big question is: can
15:23we afford the luxury of demanding the
15:25same level of scientific evidence for
15:27something that moves so fast? I don't
15:31think so. If we wait 5 years to have
15:34better evidence and then discover that
15:36yes, social media really was harmful,
15:38in that timeframe there will have been
15:40young people who died or who harmed
15:42themselves because of social media.

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