Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis attended the “SNF Global Health Initiative: Focus on Mental Health” event this morning, which took place at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. In his address, the Prime Minister noted:
Thank you. Thank you so much, Andreas, and thank you to the lovely panel for this very insightful discussion. Let me first of all start by acknowledging the tremendous work that the Stavros Niarchos Foundation has done in Greece. Andreas, we’re deeply, deeply grateful for everything you have done for the country, not just this lovely center, the hospitals you’re building, but also the commitment to investing in the people, because the buildings are lovely and they will be lovely, but unless we look at them through a completely different lens, which also incorporates the mental health aspect, we will have done only half of the job.
So, coming to the panel discussion, we take mental health issues, especially when it comes to our children, our teenagers, very seriously. And I’m very grateful to you and to the team for putting together this evidence-based study and for actually spending the time to talk to our teenagers to understand what is really, really happening.
And I will share this study not just with my team, I will also share this study with the President of the European Commission because, as you know, this is a topic which is discussed not only at the member state level, it’s also discussed at the European level.
We have taken a bold decision, and we do understand that it is a bazooka type approach, but we have decided that we will ban access to social media for our kids under 15, and we do believe that this is a necessary step in order to protect the mental health of our kids and our teenagers because the evidence is unequivocal.
It does do damage on numerous accounts, and as you pointed out, Giovanni, it’s not just the time you spend, it’s also the content that you receive. We are victims to doomscrolling, so imagine what happens to a brain that is not fully developed when it is exposed to a design that is addictive by design.
And we need to hold the platforms accountable, and we need to convince them or force them to cooperate when it comes to this issue. So I do expect that this issue will eventually be regulated at the European level, and that we will also send a signal to the platforms that making money off our kids is simply not acceptable. They’re making enough money by hijacking our attention, but there is serious damage that is being done here, and we need to make sure that we hold them accountable.
But I was also very much struck by what Tommy said. Getting our kids off screens is very important, but what is the alternative? The alternative is very simple: get them to do sports, get them to play a musical instrument. I mean, if you play soccer, even if you want to, you can’t have your phone with you. So if you swim, you can’t have your phone with you. And for those of us who have done sports and who understand the value, especially of team sports, it is the best alternative that we can offer our kids.
And when we speak about mental health in general, because this is not just a topic about kids and teenagers, we know that the number one recommendation we give in terms of public health to the Greek population is exercise. Exercise not only to control your weight or to lower your cholesterol. Exercise because we know that it does something to your brain chemistry, and I’m sure that experts here know much better, that makes us actually feel better.
So, make sure that we intervene when it comes to screens. Make sure that we do whatever we can to just invest in playgrounds. The best investment that we can make is to build new stadiums and new playgrounds, especially in our schools. We have all these dilapidated, rundown playgrounds. You go all over Greece and, and you see them. It’s a very small investment. Every time we’ve intervened, we actually see these playgrounds are full with kids playing basketball or volley or soccer. So this is probably the best bang for the buck in terms of how we can spend public money.
And finally, one final word. Thank you for talking to all this amazing community of psychiatrists and mental care professionals across the country and make them become part of a group because they feel now that someone is listening to them. We are very excited about the CAMHI (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Initiative) results and the way we can incorporate this in our education, how we can train our teachers to identify signs of mental disorder. Because at the end of the day, as you said, not everyone will have access to a mental care professional.
And my final word, you mentioned parents. We already have – and I don’t know how many of you know this – we have a site called “Parental Control”, parco.gov.gr, where we give very clear instructions to parents how they can set up the phones of their kids even now as we speak to limit their access to specific platforms, to set time limits, and to take more control over what’s happening in the digital space of the children.
You know, we are so protective of our children. We want to track them everywhere. You know, they go out and play and we’re so concerned, but then we leave them in the room or on their phone and we have no idea what is happening. So we need to reverse that. So until we get to the point, and we will enforce the ban on January 1st, whether Europe does something or not – I’m sure that Europe will also do something-, in the meantime, make sure to take advantage of these platforms and help us to talk to the parents to tell them that this is an issue.
Τhe parents understand that. Whenever we talk to parents about social media ban, I mean, they are so engaged because they see – I mean, they experience – the isolation, the aggressiveness, the mood changes when the kids spend too much time on their phones.
So again, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Thank you, Andreas. Thank you for everything you have done. I want to say this publicly in this space: Stavros Niarchos, back in the ’90s, took a bold decision to essentially donate 50% of his fortune to philanthropy. He set the precedent. I do hope that many of the rich Greeks of this generation do at least the same.
Thank you very much.
