Psychiatrist Tonino Cantelmi: “Young people’s anger is the result of social media and immature parents”

It is not merely a sociological or political issue: teenagers are growing up fuelled by anger, primarily due to digital addiction. This is the view of psychiatrist Tonino Cantelmi, a member of the National Bioethics Committee and president of the INMP (the National Institute for the Promotion of Migrant Health and the Fight against Poverty-Related Diseases), who has previously been appointed by Pope Francis as a consultant to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The class action seeking an injunction brought by various associations (led by Moige, the Italian Parents’ Movement) against Meta and TikTok is based on his ‘pro veritate’ opinion, in proceedings that are due to conclude shortly before the Milan Commercial Court.

Social media platforms are designed like slot machines, to induce addiction by stimulating the limbic system at an age when the prefrontal cortex has not yet matured. They encourage a constant search for gratification, accompanied by bursts of anger and resentment when this need is not met. These effects are also evident in data on alcohol consumption and gambling, which are alarmingly widespread among minors. Added to this is the premature sexualisation of childhood: online pornography is the most widespread form of sex education, leading to the paradoxical resurgence of gender stereotypes that had been dismantled over decades.

Because sex education is based on the objectification of women, without fostering experience of or skills in managing intimate relationships. The children involved in horrific incidents such as those in Caivano and Palermo have learnt from pornographic platforms.

The solution is to require Meta and TikTok to design platforms suitable for children and teenagers. At the same time, it is vitally important to ensure ‘digital detox’ zones, such as schools, to help preserve the mind’s analogue processes, which enable depth of thought, planning and sustained attention.

Unfortunately, social media has contributed to the phenomenon of ‘adultescents’: parents who are very kind and affectionate towards their children, but who are grappling with unresolved adolescent conflicts. They are incapable of emotional restraint or of enforcing rules. Authority is not in their repertoire. We are witnessing an infantilisation of adulthood.

This represents a striking case of an adult who appears indistinguishable from a teenager—an individual to whom I would never entrust the upbringing of a child. Nor should we overlook the mothers in Bologna who positioned themselves between their protesting children and the police: such behavior constitutes a form of infantilization that benefits no one, amounting to a renunciation of the parental role.

There are also ‘grandparents of the new generation’: one need only look at the social media profiles of certain people in their fifties and sixties, who give teenagers a run for their money. Such a grandparent is certainly not in a position to make sense of their grandchildren’s emotional turmoil. The concern is that society might one day awaken to ask: ‘How on earth did we fail to protect these young people?’. It is clear that, in practice, a parent cannot address this alone: the most effective action comes through the numerous associations already active and, speaking as a Catholic, through the work the Church carries out in parishes with family groups.

The sentencing judgement for the very young murderer of Aurora Tila states that the young girl sought advice from her ‘best friend’, ChatGPT. The problem is not artificial intelligence but loneliness, the absence of an adult to recognise her distress. I have expressed my views on AI to the Bioethics Committee and the Senate’s Human Rights Commission, calling for two safeguards: the first is that if you purchase or book a service of any kind, you must, if you wish, have the option to speak to a person; the second is to ensure a human presence, at least in sectors such as healthcare: AI has superior diagnostic capabilities, but an algorithm cannot communicate the results to you. Let us make use of artificial intelligence, but without neglecting the relational aspects.

I do not wish to comment on the legal aspects, but I regret that the opportunity was not taken to engage in a more profound reflection on the challenge that this family – to whom an apology will one day be due – has posed to our bourgeois society. Their way of life is not my own, but it deserved an effort to understand it. The silence of the progressive world regarding those who advocated ultra-progressive values such as radical environmentalism and the rejection of waste – with an almost neo-Franciscan agenda – was remarkable. Yet even the Church remained silent.

There are less brutal ways of going about things. The fact that they did not enrol their children in a state school and used an outdoor dry toilet did not justify dismissing decades of research on parenting and family love. Nathan and Catherine are not a pair of reckless individuals, but a couple who have matured on a human and spiritual journey, forming a family unit rich in affection with their children – a fact that should instead make us reflect on the disasters within our own middle-class families.