Abstract
The aim of this paper is to investigate the issue of access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at younger ages, which is leading to dependency on mobile phones, video games, and compulsive aimless internet surfing—an issue that schools have been increasingly seeking to tackle. With the appearance of emerging technologies, and not forgetting those already established, an instrument is required that will adapt to new casuistry and help to design intervention programmes in accordance with present and future patterns of use, abuse, and addiction. Studies such as the one proposed here will provide data about the profile of this population in order to improve programmes and influence the ICT policies rolled out by central and local governments. The chief aim of this paper is to construct and validate an instrument capable of evaluating problems experienced by young people in relation to technology use, abuse, and addiction within the programmes developed in Spain. The research design used in this study is mixed empirical, non-experimental, and sequential in nature in three stages: interviews conducted with 11 prevention professionals, group of 11 experts and pilot group of 30 participants in indicated prevention programmes. The findings of the study indicate that the instrument fulfills the parameters established to be considered a systematic empirically sustainable instrument, since the young population needs to identify these patterns in order to understand and prevent risk behaviours associated with their use.
Highlights
The technological developments experienced over the past decade have brought forth a wide range of devices, applications, and tools designed for recreation, communication, and the services sector, becoming essential activities that facilitate everyday life
Some studies have shown that access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at increasingly young ages can make subjects more prone to inappropriate usage, triggering dependency on mobile phones, video games, compulsive aimless internet surfing, social media, or instant messaging apps
Stage 1 (Designing a first draft based on the information provided by in-depth interviews conducted with prevention professionals): In order to compile information to construct the instrument aimed at young people involved in indicated prevention programs run by the Proyecto Hombre Association, capable of evaluating possible technology use, abuse or addiction problems; initially, we sought to conduct semi-structured interviews with the programme officers, in order to compile information about the real needs of the professional team working directly with the target study group
Summary
The technological developments experienced over the past decade have brought forth a wide range of devices, applications, and tools designed for recreation, communication, and the services sector, becoming essential activities that facilitate everyday life. Great social alarm has been generated about the addiction to new technologies in adolescents, which is reflected in various studies [7,8,9,10,11,12,13] When use of such technology is high but controlled, we talk about problematic usage, taking as a basis the data provided by the Pfizer Foundation’s study conducted in 2009 [14], which indicated that 98% of young Spanish people aged 11–20 used the internet, and of these, around 3%–6% spent an average of 1.5 hours a day online. In any case, when dealing with digital or internet devices and/or the tools that require them in order to be used, the term techno-addiction can be used [17]
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