Latest roundtable of project Preaddiction on behavioral disorders

The project Preaddiction has held the third and last roundtable scheduled for this year, within its calendar of activities. On this occasion, addictions that are not caused by the consumption of substances were discussed. Enrique Aubá, a psychiatrist from the Clínica Universidad de Navarraand Blanca Martínez, psychologist of the association ANTOX, were in charge of giving the keys to the attendees.

"With the irruption of technologies, new addictionshave appeared that affect people's behaviors" indicated Martínez, "such as gambling, video games or shopping, among others". He added that it is necessary to identify them by detecting a series of factors: "loss of control, psychological dependence, loss of interest and whether this produces serious interference in daily life are key elements".

For his part, Aubá emphasized the fact that "the fact that there is no addictive disorder does not mean that it is not harmful to the person, because if an adolescent spends many hours playing video games, even if he gets good grades, it is still something negative for him". In this regard, he affirmed that gaming, in itself, is a behavior "that gives pleasure, because we have it since we are small and it is present throughout our lives" because "when we try to be efficient we put pressure on ourselves with perfectionist behaviors. Then we need entertainment and that is where we can get hooked".

Sex was also discussed, as an addiction "still not recognized in many places", according to the psychiatrist, "we are seeing an addictive sexual behavior disorder, and sex is not so essential for the person's identity". At this point, he clarified that "eating or shopping are actions that are necessary to live, although they can degenerate into addictions. While sex is not.

Use of smartphones

One of the topics that came up at discussion with the students was the use of cell phones. Martínez indicated that it is necessary to work on prevention: "exposing children to screens at a very early age is not the most convenient thing to do, because it generates concentration problems". On this point, Aubá indicated that the use of cell phones, on many occasions "is a vehicle for other addictions, such as shopping, social networks or pornography".