Filenews 6 July 2025 - by Marios Demetriou
The need for the development of a National Strategy for the Protection of Minors from Internet Addiction in Cyprus was stressed by DISY MP Dimitris Demetriou, during a very interesting discussion he organized on June 25, 2025 at an event venue in old Nicosia, on the subject of youth Internet addiction. He underlined that Greece has already developed and is implementing such a National Strategy, as of December 2024. One of the speakers at the event, Dr. Christos Minas, President of the Cyprus Addiction Treatment Authority, suggested "strengthening the responsibilities of the Authority, which would allow it to assume a systematic and coordinating role, both in monitoring and dealing with this phenomenon, in all its scope, given that at the moment AAEK has competence, Only for one form of digital addiction, the pathological preoccupation with online gambling, while it is clear that the phenomenon of digital addiction is much broader."
The discussion, which was moderated by actress Eleni Sidera, was also attended by Dr. Irene Kadianaki, associate professor at the Department of Psychology of the University of Cyprus, who said that in Cyprus, the number of "problematic" adolescent internet users amounts to a not negligible percentage of 13%, according to a recent survey by the World Health Organization for health behaviours in school-age children, which takes place every 4 years in 44 countries, including Cyprus. He clarified that "problematic" use, "does not concern a diagnosis of addiction, but it does contain elements of addiction, such as the inability to abstain from social media, increased anxiety, feelings of deprivation and loss of interest in other activities."
On the panel was specialist psychologist Dr. Doris Camara, who pointed out that "for a teenager seeking acceptance, the screen can act as a substitute for a meaningful relationship, or a refuge." During the discussion, the officer of the Cybercrime Prosecution Branch of the Police, Chrystalla Solomontos, expressed her great concern about the fact that "the uncontrolled exposure of minors on the internet, unfortunately, often results in the sexual abuse of children in Cyprus".
"We need filters, limits and systematic control"...
MP Dimitris Demetriou opened the debate by announcing that two weeks earlier, he submitted a bill to increase the age limit for the use of social media, from the 14th year currently in force in Cyprus, to the 16th year of age. He also informed the attendees that on June 4, 2025, Cyprus, together with Greece, France, Spain, Denmark and Slovenia, signed a joint declaration requesting that the "kids wallet", created by the European Union, be connected to children's mobile devices, for the regulation of parental control for the verification of the user's age, through this application.
Taking the floor, the moderator of the discussion, Eleni Sidera, said that after her recent online post about children's digital addiction, she had been contacted by MP Dimitris Demetriou, who suggested her to participate in the discussion. As she said in her post, "we are asking for a national strategy to protect young people from the dangers of the internet, because at the moment, we have children who are deprived of their basic right to be children! When you are deprived of childhood, you lose the opportunity to learn, to develop social skills, to get to know yourself through play, human contact and physical interaction.
Children go crazy about "brain rot", which they consider innocent and funny, by watching incomprehensible, or excessively chaotic videos. But behind the "skibidi toilet", the "gyatt", the "rizz", there is something more fundamental and worrying: the constant exposure of the brain, to content that does not enhance any cognitive function, imagination or creative thinking, but causes overstimulation and distracting attention. I don't want to sound conservative – and we, the children of the '90s, had our own traps, television, endless hours of video games, magazines with templates. But what we are experiencing today is something much more invasive, more addictive and much darker. They're not just screens.
They are algorithms designed to captivate. It is content that familiarizes our children with inhumanity, distortion, deafness. The danger is great and it is not only a matter for parents, but also for the state, for society as a whole. We need education for children and parents. Filters and limits. Systematic control of platforms. Schools that dare to tell the truth. And yes, the participation of the Church, which unfortunately often deals with other things and loses the essential: children."
Six hours every day, the average working time!
In his own intervention, the President of the Cyprus Addiction Treatment Authority, Dr. Christos Minas, said, among other things, that "the data from Cyprus for our young people are revealing, as 1 in 4 young people have problematic internet use, while 8% show clear symptoms of addiction to social media. The average working time, mainly for girls, exceeds 6 hours per day. Regarding online gambling, it seems that the percentage of online gambling, among students in Cyprus, amounts to 16%. AAEK, in the context of the National Strategy for Addictions 2021-2028, approaches digital addiction as equivalent to other addictive behaviours. As an Authority, we invest in prevention from childhood, through child support, parental education and support, and we approve and license therapeutic interventions in specialized centers, while at the same time, we participate in European programs."
When the screen becomes a refuge
Clinical psychologist Doris Camara, scientific coordinator of "PERSEA", Adolescent and Family Counselling Center, of the State Health Services Organization (OHS), pointed out that "social media, online games, entertainment platforms and educational tools, compose a digital environment that offers unlimited possibilities, but also significant challenges. One of the most worrying developments of recent years – he said – is the increase in digital addiction, a form of addiction, with real effects on the mental health of young people.
Digital addiction refers to the excessive and compulsive use of digital media, to the extent that it disrupts the person's daily functioning, social life, sleep, performance at school and emotional balance. Digital technology offers instant reward, high-intensity stimuli and the illusion of risk-free connection. The therapeutic approach focuses not only on reducing use, but mainly on understanding the inner needs covered through addiction.
The adolescent is asked to investigate, what leads him to overuse, what emotions or situations he avoids, and what alternative ways of connection and relaxation can be enhanced. Cooperation with the family is often necessary, as a supportive environment needs to be formed, with clear boundaries, but also emotional availability."
The demonization that leads to an illusion...
"What arises to me as a question is, what else drives young people online, beyond the attractiveness of online life, as presented on social media?" said Dr. Irene Kadianaki, among others.
He added: "Scientists observe that parents over-organize the lives of young people with structured activities, in which they are constantly under adult supervision. There is a great deal of embarrassment and anxiety about letting our children move freely, in unstructured activities that will mobilize their own self-activity and imagination and allow free social interaction with peers. Free play in parks and neighbourhoods, in the company of friends, without any specific purpose and learning outcome, disappears, mainly because in our eyes, it is not "useful", or it is "uncontrollable", or "there are dangers".
The NGOs come to fill this gap, for young people. There are studies that show that young people connect with their friends online, because they don't have time or don't let them be physically present, without the adult gaze. This also coincides with a period of active and urgent search for identity of adolescents, a period when friends acquire twice as much importance in their lives as their parents and when there is a great need for autonomy.
Another important reminder: many of the social problems that we attribute to the NGOs are not due to them, but are exacerbated or become more visible there. The sexualization of girls from an early age, bullying, excessive anxiety and symptoms of depression and eating disorders are broader social problems outside of the media. The demonization of the medium leads to a concealment of the real social problems and perhaps gives us an illusion that our problems will be solved by magic if our children do not enter them. It is not so. We can and must delay young people's access to the NCDs, but at the same time we must try to understand it, because it is part of our lives, which will not go away.
We need to understand both the experience it offers to adolescents and the needs it covers. We need to look critically at how young people's lives are structured today, in a way that pushes them into the middle, partly because of our own responsibility – as parents, as teachers, as adults with a role in their lives. We also have to look critically at our own involvement with the media, how absorbed we are in the media. In order to move forward properly, we need to redefine the perception of young people. Instead of seeing them as victims of the medium, we need to position them as responsible, capable of acting on their own and regulating their behaviour, both online and offline."
Dr. Kadianaki referred to protective and regulatory factors to reduce the negative effects of media use. He included among these factors, "the relationship with parents and open channels of communication, but also the individual characteristics of adolescents themselves, such as connection, resilience, cognitive, social, emotional, behavioural and moral ability, autonomy and self-esteem." He said that "digital literacy is also a protective factor – one's skills to analyze, evaluate, understand what one sees daily in the NGOs and to have developed critical thinking towards information, scepticism towards news and information, which may be fake".
Underage victims of sexual abuse
"The children of this generation, born with the internet, know from a very young age how to use mobile phones, how to express themselves through them, they create accounts from elementary school, I can say and they cannot perceive the dangers," Chrystalla Solomontos observed, clarifying that as an officer of the Electronic Crime Prosecution Branch of the Police, she mainly deals with cases of sexual abuse of minors.
"Often," he said, "underage children have more online knowledge than their parents and many desperate parents turn to our Office and ask for help from us to save their children! We see a tendency in girls and boys, to want to be liked, to want more friends, to talk to strangers, whose parents do not know them and whom children trust as if they were real friends. In the end, we see children being victims of sexual abuse. Personally, I give lectures in many schools across Cyprus and I meet parents and teachers who ask for help, but nevertheless, we do not see much change in children. On the contrary, we find that younger and younger children have contact with the internet, have no limits and do whatever they want, without the knowledge of their parents..."
