Concern about the effects of mobile phone use on mental health, especially in children and adolescents, is not new. According to a recent report According to the Save the Children organization, 58% of children have been using the Internet regularly since they were 11 years old, and almost one in three have been using it frequently since before they turned 10. As they grow older, they spend more hours online: up to four hours a day, not counting the time they spend online on homework or schoolwork.
Children are beginning to interact with the Internet at an increasingly earlier age, reaching 7 years of age. And not only that, but they end up owning a smartphone too early, according to research recently published in the magazine Journal of Youth and Adolescence. One of its authors, Mercedes Martínez, researcher at the Faculty of Psychology at UNED and executive secretary of the association Childhood and Communicationexplains that they have found that age does not determine greater vulnerability in the consumption of online content. However, ownership of the phone does seem to have an influence: both in the levels of discomfort of minors, which are higher, and in the educational strategies of parents, whose effectiveness is reduced.
This researcher admits, as a mother of two children aged 12 and 14, that it can be difficult to delay the age of transfer of that property: “For them it is a question of be oldersomething like graduation, and of course it is a determining issue compared to their peers.” He also recognizes that if they do not have access to these shared communication channels, they will probably be or find themselves more isolated. But, with the data in hand, he considers that “every day they spend without screens is a gift for them, something like feeding them good vegetables and not just sweets. In our research, their discomfort was related to feeling worse about themselves, admitting to having consumption problems and imitating dangerous behaviors of others. influencers that followed.”
The idea of displacement
Summer brings with it more free time, but that extra time has been colonized by digital media, displacing other activities away from the screen and affecting healthy habits, such as sleep or eating. Some studies suggest that, perhaps, the increase in mental health problems and pathologies in childhood and adolescence could not only be a consequence of screen use, but of a lack of outdoor time, physical play, and contact with peers.
“If I do one thing, I can’t do another. If I spend all my time looking at my phone, I don’t jump, I don’t run, I don’t play, I don’t talk, I don’t meet new friends,” says Martínez. For the researcher, this doesn’t only happen in childhood and invites adults to ask themselves what activities have been displaced: “We should see how many of us admit that we spend more time than we should looking at screens and how much of that time wouldn’t be better spent talking, playing, running and spending time with our children. They learn by modeling, not by what we say, but simply by what they see us do.”
Clara Burriel, a Save the Children specialist in child protection against violence, also believes that adults have a key role in the example we set for children and adolescents in relation to the use of these media: “Technology and the digital environment have become another part of our lives and, little by little, the line that separates the physical world from the virtual one has been disappearing: the digital world is intrinsically linked to our daily lives, to our routines and to almost all facets of our lives.”
On this subject, Kepa Paul Larrañaga, a sociologist of childhood and vice-president of the association Grupo de Sociología de la Infancia y la Adolescencia (GSIA), criticises “the simplistic view that is often given to this issue” and believes that proposing restrictive measures, such as banning the use of mobile phones until the age of 16, without considering the social complexity and the need for these devices by children from low-income families, is a mistake. “There is a lack of focus on children’s rights in the social debate and in legislative measures, as well as a tendency to pathologise and stigmatise children and adolescents instead of focusing on their well-being”, he believes.
Consensus standards and healthy alternatives
Summer can also be an opportunity to reestablish family rules about mobile phone usage time and take advantage of the opportunity to try to make the displacement of the offline for the on-line is younger. Burriel encourages parents to take advantage of this period to review with their children the rules for the use of devices by all members of the family; or to create such rules, if they had not already done so. “It is interesting to encourage intergenerational dialogue to find agreed and sustainable solutions. Of course, without forgetting the need to think of healthy alternatives to digital leisure that allow us to enjoy free time without depending exclusively on technology,” says this specialist.
Adoración Díaz, professor and researcher of the cyberpsychology group at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), adds that, in addition to promoting healthy leisure habits at home, such as reading or playing board games, parents should act as role models. “Children copy what their parents do. Summer is a time to rest, relax and enjoy free time. In this sense, depriving ourselves of the use of devices does not seem a realistic option; however, we must be careful not to consume the months of July and August between reels and TikToks,” he notes.
The Spanish Association of Pediatrics encourages the development of a family digital planthrough which families can establish rules of use and enjoyment for the whole family. To do this, they offer information, tools and a template from which to work with ideas such as increasing physical exercise as a family, avoiding prolonged screen time, establishing screen-free zones or time limits, among others. And they warn that the first step, of course, is for adults to review their own ways and times of use.
The mobile phone, off the table and out of bed
Adoración Díaz reminds us that it is important to know that there are two barriers that should not be crossed: rest and family meals. “The use of devices during the night is not recommended, as they can interfere with the quality of rest and are related to insomnia problems,” says this researcher. She also points out that the use of devices during meals is not recommended and suggests “taking advantage of these moments to talk and enjoy as a family.”
According to Mercedes Martinez, the findings of her study on property ownership smartphones They highlight the need for parents and educators to openly dialogue with children about the risks and falsehoods of the content of influencersand carefully consider the decision to provide minors with a smartphone. “It is not about judging, but about warning that it is desirable to delay the possession of a mobile phone as long as possible; in addition to a constant dialogue about what is real and what is not on social networks,” says Martínez.
Sociologist Kepa Paul Larrañaga insists that a distinction must be made between addiction and intensive use of digital activities, and recalls that, although the World Health Organization classified video game addiction as a disease in 2022, these were born in the 1970s and, from that time onwards, it was common to have them in specific premises in many neighbourhoods of Spanish cities. “Those arcades were sordid places where, to a greater or lesser extent, current mothers and fathers went. The comments at the time had to be negative in the face of the vice of the then teenagers of playing video games, both on machines in establishments and through consoles.”
Larrañaga proposes taking advantage of the opportunity to compare the use of screens between adolescents and adults for a fair evaluation, and to rethink how we are supporting them for a better use. “We have an opportunity to support our children so that they progressively acquire their autonomy and digital emancipation, which is what the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child is asking for, in its general comment 25 on the digital environment“It is better to ask them, listen to them and, above all, accompany them without exercising rampant paternalism,” he says.
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