Family relationships, how they are presented in the media, and virtual relationships

Perhaps the success of social networks among adolescents is due to the necessity for young people to find their identity.

The eruption of the awareness of an interior world, which is still to be dominated, calls for new relationships that help configure it, distinct from those already existing relationships supported by the parents and siblings. Adolescents need friends.

A key to understanding this popular social phenomenon among the youth may be found in the conference given by González Gaitano:

Family relationships, how they are presented in the media, and virtual relationships. It was held in May 2011, on the occasion of the International Day of the Family, which took place at the Giovanni Spadolini’s Hall in the Senate of the Italian Republic.

Relationships are fundamental in the make-up of one’s personal identity. Of course there are relationships, and then “relationships”. Saint-Exupery was right when he stated that “a man is worthy inasmuch as his relationships”. Certainly the author of The Little Prince did not have Facebook in mind, had this social network existed then. Facebook can be for friendships what a feeling can be for the soul: an incentive to enter more deeply, but nothing more than that. We offer the text of this conference.