Every fourth teenager (26%) watches online so-called patostreams, vulgar, obscene and violent shows or live Internet broadcasts on streaming services and social media – according to the NASK report “Teenagers 3.0”. This phenomenon, which has a negative impact on young people, is still gaining importance in the Internet space, and the law is not keeping up with the development of technology. Experts note that this is not just a passing fad, but a serious social problem that requires integrated educational and informational activities.
Patostreams primarily include pornography, materials showing violence, as well as content encouraging behaviors that are harmful to health, such as drug use, or self-destructive behaviors – self-harm, suicide, etc. During live broadcasts, young people see violence, brutal scenes, various offenses and abuses, beatings, thefts, and even rapes. Experts warn that the growth in popularity of such content on the web has completely gotten out of control.
– Patotrends or patostreams, the patoinfluencer phenomenon in general, have been with us since social media existed. It is streaming, broadcasting live content that is pathological, very controversial, such as alcohol binges. Such patocontent was most popular in the years 2015-18 and on this foundation, for example, freak fights grew, which pulled out these patostreamers and told them to fight. This caused patostreams to become fashionable and to this day they show bad patterns, especially to young people – Wojtek Kardyś, EU Digital Ambassador to Poland, specialist in internet communications, tells the Newseria agency.
According to the report “Teenagers 3.0” prepared by NASK, 40% of technical school students, 30% of high school students and 28% of primary school students admit to watching patostreams. Boys do it almost twice as often as girls. With age, interest in watching vulgar and violent broadcasts on the Internet increases. The specialist in internet communications points out that contact between young people and such content can be destructive to their psyche. It disrupts empathy, makes them lose their sense of what is bad and what is good, and also causes them to become “immune” to someone else’s harm.
– This is a psychological and cultural degradation, because a person who consumes such content on a daily basis, unfortunately, fills their brain with very low-quality content, reaching the intellectual bottom and, unfortunately, with time they also become such a person. If we allow our children to have access to such content, we cause this pathological content to germinate in them as well – says Wojtek Kardyś.
– This content shows the youngest that they don't have to study at all, they don't have to achieve business success to be popular or rich, because patostreams are quite profitable. The most popular patostreamers can get from PLN 10 to 20 thousand from one stream. So it's popular, profitable, so young people think: I want that too.
Controlling this phenomenon is difficult because this content is widely available on the Internet.
– Patoinfluencers are on every platform because controversy is clickable. We live in a time when algorithms determine what is important to display and what is not – it is not human dignity that decides this, but the algorithm. If the clicks decide that controversial content will be more attractive, then we will display it. Such content is on YouTube, on social media, and there are also certain streaming platforms where you can buy a subscription for money to watch adult content where patoinfluencers undress. Unfortunately, internet pathology affects all corners of the web – says the expert.
Easy accessibility is one aspect that determines the growing popularity of this phenomenon. The other is peer pressure.
– Sometimes I ask young people: “Why do you watch this?”. The most common answer is: “Everyone watches it, so I do too”. If this is the main topic, and I don't know what a given patoinfluencer did, what the fuss was like, then no one talks to me in the group and I am alienated, and this is the worst thing that can happen to a young person. So if this person wants to be up to date, they have to watch this content. This is one thing, and two – this is also a form of rebellion. When I was young, I listened to heavy music to draw a thick line from my parents – says Wojtek Kardyś.
The problem is that parents are not always aware of this. A comparison of the answers of teenagers and parents from the NASK study shows that young people watch patostreams twice as often as their parents assume.
– Maybe it's also a matter of parents not talking to their children enough, not paying enough attention to them – the expert emphasises. – To this day I haven't seen any social campaign that would make parents and the youngest aware of this problem. Do schools talk about it? No. Are there conferences on this topic? There's one a year. So there is a problem that is not talked about, that is swept under the carpet and nothing is done about it. I am absolutely not saying to change the law, I am saying to talk, because everything starts with talking. If we educate teachers, educate parents, this knowledge will pass on to the younger ones, we just have to talk about it.
According to information from Polsat News, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, in cooperation with the ministries of justice and education , is currently developing regulations that are to limit young people's access to patocontent, but also to define this phenomenon . The NASK study shows that students themselves are not always able to recognize whether the content they are watching is patostream.
