Crptoverse and my Worry for kids

 

The Cryptoverse has amazing possibilities but also significant risks. I am a survivor of a mental health condition psychosis and depression and suffered multiple childhood traumas which I believed caused the mental health condition and the addiction. Current research suggests childhood traumas are certainly a causation in addiction and mental health. I am also a Drug and Alcohol intervention worker with children and teenagers, my academic study is in children and young people to a masters level and I’ve been working with young people for 15 years. I am also an artist, investor and was trading the crypto markets for about a year, but that for another thread. The reason i felt compelled to re-post and comment on this blog was just to inform and to help people think more deeply about the Crytopverse in general, particularly in relation to young people.

In my work with teenagers to be honest the crytoverse scares the hell out of me for them. I have watched over the years how social media and internet connection has both enhanced our lives and devastated our lives. The connectivity is amazing and I have many friends around the world as a result and access to instant information, though the downside I spend too much time online as do most people. Also, I am old enough to remember the world before social media and Mobile phones’, I’m not nostalgic about it, it had pros and cons, though people had more patience and kids grew up slower, played more sports, where less sedentary as you were forced to leave the house or entertain yourself at home through play reading and drawing.

What scares me about the crytoverse is the same thing that scares me about current internet access, what kids have access too at the moment. Some examples are; violence through video games. 10 year olds and younger play grand theft auto and other 18 rated games, parents don’t seem to see it as a problem but I see many more violent kids, unrestricted access to pornography, I work with a group of 12/13 year olds who are watching porn every day and masturbating to it, therefore their first experience with sex is through porn, and all that comes with that, including group sex, violence, dehumanization, degradation male on woman sexual violence’s, exploitation of women and men. Young people also have access to snuff images and videos, where people are murdered, killed in accidents etc and recorded. I’m sure people are getting the point. Violence  and sexual violence is endemic in our society and I see it more and more every year in young people, and it seems getting younger all the time.

In addition to this, unrealistic images of celebrities through social media with perfect bodies and faces that young people see and believe they really look like that all the time, and when they can’t live up too these images it makes them feel less than, they don’t see the make-up artists, the image editing, the filters etc. What these images actually tell young people is that they are ugly, fat, skinny, not fit, not funny, not glamorizes, not acceptable, not good enough and worthless which really means to young young people something is wrong with them.

There is much more than this but I just wanted to make some brief points about it, so the question is, why would the metaverse and cryto verse be any better than what it is. I’m not big int regulation and I like decentralization, however, what are the risks for people who are immersed in an alternate universe with nobody making sure people are safe, because that’s what it is. In addition nobody talks about online addiction, can you just turn off your device for a few days and be OK, try it out and see, because young people can’t go 20 minutes without checking their devices, I have to physically take phones off them when we are doing activities. There appears to be more risks online than there is in reality as far as I can see. My experience tells me we are sitting on a time-bombs of mental health conditions related to online activity.