Nel marzo 2011 Philip Zimbardo è stato presente ad un TEDTalk di cinque minuti per parlare della scomparsa di ragazzi. In questa presentazione illustra i risultati della ricerca e ci incoraggia ad aiutare i giovani per un comune futuro migliore.

So I'm here to sound an alarm. It is a problem in every country around the world and today I'm gonna argue. It's only going to get worse unless we begin to do some important remedial changes. Boys are failing in school as I said they're failing in business, they're failing socially and even failing sexually. They're becoming obese. In America we call it fat-ass nation and the point is and they are creating nothing, they are consuming. If you play video games and you watch porn, you are a consumer in the worst sense. And you'll end up creating nothing and so, where is the next generation of young men coming that are going to help our society and for every woman in the audience where will you find a good man? And that's the title of our new polish book but it's not a phase. People say: - well, boys have always gone through a changes, this is temporary!

This is not temporary, this is permanent! So here are so many individual factors, political correctness. Men have a set of rules about what they should not do, but we don't really tell them clearly what they should do in order to be a man in our society, so the old traditional roles no longer fit the old roles was to be a warrior or breadwinner. What's interesting now most societies are in transition as women excel as women are doing better and better there's a whole set of new gender roles that we need to discuss and put into action. Girls and women, I said, are excelling at levels that we have never imagined. The younger generation women are the legacy, the pride of women's liberation from the 70s and 80s and they create a new problem for boys because girls are doing better and better, while boys are doing worse and worse. So the boys are opting out, opting out of a confusing world they're isolating themselves in a safer simple place in the Amish is in his rule. They're going into virtual worlds, what's good about the virtual world for them, the objectives are clear: they have control over the outcomes, they have no fear you never get rejected as long as you practice because practice will make perfect. Young men are trapped in what we call present hedonistic mode and some of you know I did lots. I have done lots of research on the Psychology of Time Perspective and there are many different time zones that each of us live it.

Some of us live in the past, some in the present, some in the future. Young men, in general, are more present oriented than older people in the society, but when used to get trapped in the present hedonistic mode all you want is pleasure and avoid pain you never plan you never have contingencies, you never set an agenda, you cannot succeed in any society.

If you are present hedonistic you must become future oriented and we'll see later that is one of the goals of our program. Young men are 25% more likely to live at home with their parents permanently. Now there used to be empty nets, it's empty net syndrome. Parents were sad, when their children left the boys are not leaving, they're staying staying in their room. The problem is they say they don't do anything, they don't help with chores, they say "I am entitled to it because I'm a boy, I'm a man.

The most amazing thing I discovered in our research is that single mothers are on the rise everywhere in the world, 41% of all women in America who have children are single mothers. No one husband this gets worse if you look at women who are 30 years old or younger. That figure goes to 50% that means one of every two boys in America whose mother is 30. Is 30 years old has no father that means gross and sometimes almost from the time they are babies. It's better in the UK, in Poland it's only 25 percent but translate 25 percent of the Polish population into and into the numbers, it's millions of young boys. You're young boys without a father and I mean, I'll say girls need fathers as much as boys do, but boys need fathers in special ways.

Also we now know single mothers often have one or two jobs. If they have several children they're always on the high levels of stress, high levels of stress gets transmitted to the boys of various ways and we see these boys having not only poor social development. There probably many of the boys that Agnieszka talked about and they they aren't labeled. They're likely to have attention deficit disorder which I'll talk about in a minute and finally they have many behavioral problems in school and in society. If you have no father in the family the social economic status it drops significantly because you don't have two salaries you only have one even.

For young men who have a father the fathers are psychologically absent. Our research in America says on average a boy talks his father or a father talks a boy 30 minutes a week that same boy sits in front of a screen computer screen or TV screen 44 hours. So again here's a major problem, boys don't have a father physically present and even when he's physically present he's not emotionally psychologically present in many cases, in too many cases. Again, a big problem in America is it may not be the same here fewer and fewer families have regular sit-down family dinners again.

I come from a Sicilian background and having family dinners is the most important thing lunch and dinner because you share values what we look is boys who do not come from a family that don't have regular family dinners here are the consequences. There are four times more likely to smoke and we know smoking kills smoking causes lung cancer. There are two and a half times and we're likely to use marijuana there are two times I can use alcohol and even more important is there are four times likely to engage in hard drug use later in life. It was a Harvard study of Harvard graduates that they follow these men throughout their life and when they were older they wanted to know these are men who were successful what was important in your success. It had nothing to do with the you how rich your family was had nothing to do how rich you was it was only the only issue that mattered was the warmth of their childhood when they remembered back to their childhood the ones who were successful always remembered having a warm childhood and specifically was related to how close you fell to your father. So here's men who were successful had a childhood where they think back we call it "past positive" and I was close to my father he was close to me. The main difference, a main difference in men and women between mothers and fathers mothers in general give love unconditionally if a child cut the boy comes home with bad grades money hugs him and says "I love you". Anyway father says: "no you got to perform yeah you got to get my respect you have to perform in school you have to inform athletically". So father's give love conditionally that means when that you don't have a father you lose this extrinsic motivation to perform and boys need that more than girls boys now are escaping, escaping to the internet virtual worlds of video games and now for the first time ever pornography which is available all the time, pornography is available now 24/7 in every country in the world it never was that way before. If men wanted to see pornography they had to go to pornography gallery or they were always embarrassed to go in anybody. Somebody might see them anybody anytime anywhere any age without control has before them an endless array of pornography which we will look at a little in a moment and the pornography is ready to turn boys on. But their brains are becoming digitally rewired because they are spending so much time in this new digital world, so the average boy plays video games 13 hours a week much more than girls and will say why white girls don't play as much as boys, that's the average that means somebody is playing 26 hours a week. It was see in a moment even more that's adds up to the whole month of February 24 hours a day Jane McGonigal. Who's the author of a whole book on gaming says that by the time a boy is 21 years old he has spent 10,000 hours playing video game. That's the average boy at that time he could have gotten two bachelor's degrees from from the University.

So again, video games are designed by men for men and they are captivating they are they are enchanting, so the reason why it's so excessive boys have few outlets for expression society is telling boys that they're in a world a personal narrative it is not interesting or not acceptable. These games are designed by men for men and they have male values domination competition, aggression, violence women. Women reject those kind of values now there are some games which are more socially oriented which women are beginning to play. There are clear and simple goals, the rewards are guaranteed once you reach a certain skill level and nothing else in life is true, is equally true for boys.

So gaming importing a part of now living online, so they are part of the whole internet revolution. These boys are spending time not only doing this, they're watching videos on YouTube, they're searching their Facebook and so the problem is they are sacrificing being in the real world, real world with us, real with flesh and blood and they don't know the sacrificing. It because they have given up on us the reason I said earlier is that it's here to stay. The video game industry is a multi-million dollar industry, the many different corporations who are competing with you which with each other and they're competing for the minds and eyes and fingers of young men and the pornography industry which is a little newer as it as an industry is equally a multi-million dollar business.

Those businesses make more money, for example, than all the Hollywood movies and all of almost any other major business morning for children audience. There will be a few brief us pornography scenes so as I said it's really accessible and the key is it's anonymous. The porn audience is 75% male and of some of these sites you have to pay and 98% of men are the ones who pay with their credit card. But we learned at least in America the average boy is not watching porn two hours a week that's the average that means some are watching four or more hours a week and usually it's the break you playing video games three or four hours you get a little tired you switch to pornography okay and then you go back to the game and the UK, and the United Kingdom pornhub, this site was the 31st most visited website for children ages six to fourteen. I mean the other websites are doing Google searches or Wikipedia other thing so children six years old or visiting this website not once but regularly. The problem is in many cases it becomes addictive it's both the number of hours you play but also addiction it's an arousal addiction once you start playing you need it more and more. So psychological addiction is when I'm not playing the game I'm thinking about it when I'm in class I wish I were playing the game when I'm when we're having a family dinner I wish I was playing the game and pornography is the same that addiction is a preference for this over everything else in the world and everything else in the world gets boring school gets boring and now even girls get boring compared to what they see in pornography and the arousal addiction as I mentioned in drug addiction you want more of the same you, want more heroin your mom or cocaine here what you want is novelty you want change and the video industry is going to give you change and the pornography industry has infinite variety. So but the interesting thing now is the brain quickly adapts to this high level of stimulation initially it's rewarding but over time you fail to be able to get sexually aroused, physically aroused and there's a new phenomena called PIED, Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction so now you have this paradox a boy is watching this really exciting stuff and he no longer can get an erection he can no longer can enjoy even masturbating. The problem with video games is that sizes everything, the men in the video games have enormous penises the woman are incredibly beautiful and studying but they're always women and these are almost always degraded young men, young men everywhere have developed performance anxiety about sex. Young men and old men because it's it's not always possible to get an erection sound as possible to can sustain it and in these videos men appear to have unlimited non-stop sex to 30 minutes and this all physical performance again in the old older pornography there was a story, there was an hour no story as soon as it begins people are either already undressed or they're undressing each other and it's all about physical performance. For me what's terrible what's missing is romance no tits no kissing, there's no touching, there's no talking, there's no communicating boundaries what is it and it's never ever a hint of safe sex so let me quickly shift out of that boys for the first time in history are getting less education than their fathers boys are more likely to drop out of school repeat a grade get more D's and F's. On the report card there are three times more likely to be dying than girls three times are likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and in America once you get diagnosed then you can't in many cases they persuade your parents to allow you to loud them to give you Ritalin which allows the boy to focus down but it's an addictive drug once you start you might have to take it for the rest of your life and we see boys are a year and a half behind girls in performance again partly because girls are doing better than ever they're working harder and boys are working less hard. The interesting thing is school has become a girl thing in America eight of nine teachers and all levels except at the University of women and so many boys never have a male instructor so especially boys without a father, there's no men in their life and we know that early experiences frame interested learning and in kindergarten boys brains are one year behind in their development than girls brains. So we need to readjust what how we teach them because it's not that they're Dumber, it's just that their brains are developing more slowly and interestingly, there's an unconscious bias that female teachers have against boys and this is shown in a recent study with teaches graded papers of boys and girls and when you took the names off the boys grades went up to 30%. So again we don't understand that we're following the following this up but teachers have an implicit bias for female teachers, for girls against boys. In America 70% of men are overweight, one-third of all Americans are obese clinically obese in Poland it's much better it's only 25 but again it's millions of Polish most more men and boys are obese and the problem with obesity is many and increases the likelihood of getting type 2 diabetes and increases the likelihood of it's a reduction in testosterone, reduction in libido and young gamers are definitely going in that direction because they're sitting all day they eating junk food the eating and the sucking up sugar, sugar drinks and they get less sleep and they're making terrible choices and they're not exercising, they never exit though is sitting there so they've given up reading writing, communicating, exercising,,playing sports and they becoming not only obese but physically inactive and inept, so there are solutions I'm going to run through very quickly what can the government do what can schools do what can parents do what can media do men and women and then what can the Heroic Imagination Project do. So the government we have to support the father role in religion more in legislation and we have to get more men teaching in school and the way you're going to do that school teachers should be a more honored profession. Every country teachers should be getting higher salaries and if they were more men would go into teaching we got to get junk food out of schools we have to officially not allow junk food in the cafeteria schools. Schools have to begin to teach life skills, have to teach kids personal finance how to teach them job skills how to do job interviews and teach them things we know they're going to need as adults sex education is know where parents don't talk to kids about sex ed especially if you're a single mother you're not going to talk you talk with two other boys.

Very few schools in any place in the world have sex ed which includes biology and psychology because sex is not just the physical, body physical being but it's also the psychological teachers have to now compete with those video games you cannot get up and talk to talk to your students without Keynote, PowerPoint, Prezi, without the dynamic visuals so now we have to have teacher education that certifies teachers to be of to use effectively these new design and presentation tools and again we have to encourage in school teachers ranging from work groups with a boy and a girl they can choose together when you work because you just say work together, the girls work together the boys work it, no boys have to learn from girls. Many of these basic skills that girls have been learning parents have to teach responsibility and resiliency again. Most parents have no idea the number of hours kids are playing video game so an exercise is everybody in the family for one week keeps an activity journal, how much time do you exercise, how much time you watch TV, how much time do you do homework, how much time are you on your cell phone set and how much time you playing video games. We could leave out the pornography that would be awkward at the end of the week you compare this these these records and now you begin to say we have to put more balance in our lives take technology out of the boy's bedroom or at least set limits and regular family dinners are so important without anybody having a cell phone or you put it on mute okay very quickly. Now men have to turn off games and have to turn off porn men have to turn on people they have to make female friends they have to they have to chat more text less and they have to learn how to dance and they have to become more future if they haven't set goals in life what are you going to do next week next month yeah and they have to become more educated.

The important thing for men is for young men they need a mentor older men you have a cousin, uncle, your cousin, your neighbor be a mentor and also we can develop mentoring programs online and the critical thing we now know. The single most important thing for physical and mental health is daily physical exercise and it's even more so when you exercise outdoors in nature women and mothers, mothers and sisters have to offer compassion constructive criticism and support for young men, they have to show boys and men how to communicate feelings and values without it being system Assissi have to engage in as many activities of men as possible they have to be flexible they have to women now are coming completely independent, They have to figure out how am I gonna share my independence, so I don't simply turn men off media.

We need more positive realistic images of men in the TV and movies, we have to change the gender bias either they're superheroes or they're fools when they're around women in movies and we need more pro-social video games and as I said before they can be developed and and games can be developed which involve women as well as men players simultaneously quickly, so the conclusion is we are sounding an alarm, me and Nikita loud and clear we need to show men that they're lovable desirable and not disposable and they are essential for creating the next generation we have to encourage boys, men, girls, women to become everyday heroes we have to promote the heroic imagination in all schools and we want them to be HIP. HIP is Heroic Imagination Project, so we teach the Heroic Imagination Project in San Francisco which I developed some years ago, we teach people, especially young people, everywhere how to stand up speak out and take action in challenging situations in your life. Those challenge situations can be in your family can be in your school convenient community and can be in your organization and we teach people how to have courageous conversations, how to challenge unjust authority. 

I was in London recently in Trafalgar Square, there's all these generals and admirals on horses who won battles the thing that struck my eye was this wonderful gold statue of a golden boy on a golden horse and essentially below it said the youth of today are our heroes of the future so this is what we're trying to do. In my Heroic Imagination Project is create a whole new generation of young men and young women, boys and girls who think of themselves as heroes in training that everyday you do some act of kindness of caring of compassion to make the world better for the people around you as I said in your family in your school and of course in this set no child is excluded because one of your jobs as a hero in training is to make everyone feel worthwhile and respected. So HIP USA is now combined with HIP Poland, we can make our use real every day heroes together they and we can make the world better for everyone.

[Applause]

I ragazzi sono in crisi. Hanno probabilità cinque volte maggiori di essere istituzionalizzati. La pornografia ha distorto il concetto di amore e le differenze legate al genere sono spesso trascurate o fraintese. Lo psicologo Philip Zimbardo porta alla luce alcuni dei fattori alla base di tali tematiche e parla dei cambiamenti necessari da attivare per combattere queste tendenze.

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In risposta all'intervento di Philip Zimbardo intitolato "The Demise of Guys?" al TED Talk, Gary Wilson si chiede se il nostro cervello si è evoluto per gestire l'iperstimolazione delle stimolazioni dell'Internet di oggi. Si discute anche dei sintomi inquietanti presenti in alcuni utenti che fanno un pesante uso di Internet, della manifestazione di quei sintomi, e della scienza dietro questi fenomeni del 21° secolo.

Ran Gavrieli lives in Tel Aviv and studies gender at Tel Aviv University. He works with youth and adults all over the country in sex and gender studies and in building positive self image in a world inundated by sexual imagery with negative connotations. 

Paul Miller is an American Technology Journalist from Springfield, Missouri and senior editor for The Verge. During the past year he decided to disconnect from the hyperconnected world in an attempt to 'find himself' and become more productive. He abandoned the internet and disconnected from all Social Media, returning to a life before the net, apps and smartphones. 

His experiment gained worldwide media attention when he published his article 'I'm still here' at The Verge. After a year of living 'disconnected' he published his findings and caused quite a discussion on hyperconnectivity and the influence of the internet on our daily lives. 

At TEDxEutropolis Paul Miller will speak on his experiment 'Without the Internet' and his view on the intertwined worlds of living both online and offline. If you want to read his article entitled 'I'm still here' for The Verge, just follow the links. In the article Miller explains how the internet (and leaving it) influenced his life, which eventually also inspired a video documentary.