Campaigns / Health and addictions

While anybody can get “hooked on”, or addicted to, new technologies, the campaign is primarily directed to adolescents 14 to 17 and their families. The objective is to raise awareness of the consequences and risks that are associated with inappropriate Internet use. In addition, the campaign intends to provide means and ressources necessary to get reliable information as well as specialized treatment or follow-up opportunities, should they appear necessary.

Virtually all people, especially young people, have responded eagerly to new technologies and their potential. However, those most vulnerable have become submerged by a world without limits. Consequently some of these people have been lured into a fictional world, entrapped in a vicious circle that generates greater and greater participation and where users feel compelled to stay connected longer and longer so as to reach the stimulation they need.

People then become more and more disconnected from reality and incapable of living authentic experiences out of the online world. “Being connected” has turned into a compulsive need, the very definition of addiction.

The campaign encourages the audience most closely associated with this problem to think seriously about the topic, using the very approaches specific to social networks: exaggeration, parody and humor. It allows visualizing the problem in a dramatic, ironical manner, without resorting to censure while explaining the limitations and consequences of “being connected” to new technologies 24 hours a day.

The campaign compares being connected to a device all day to being possessed by an evil spirit that prevents the person from being authentic and leading a normal life.

Read the campaign’s Scientific Framework