Introduction
In Julio Cortázar’s “History of cronopios and famas,” a tale that could easily be about smartphones if he were born in the 21st century, titled “Preamble to Instructions for Winding a Watch,” he writes:
“Think of this: when you are given a watch, you are given a small flowered hell, a chain of roses, an airlock prison. They don’t just give you the watch; they wish you happiness with it and hope it lasts […]. They unknowingly give you – oh, the terrible part is that they don’t know it – a new fragile and precarious piece of yourself, something that is yours but not your body, something that needs to be attached to your body […] They give you the fear of losing it, of it being stolen, of dropping it and breaking it. They give you their brand, and the assurance that it’s a better brand than others; they give you the tendency to compare your watch with other watches. They don’t give you a watch; you are the one being given, they offer you for your birthday.”
With smartphones, we might experience the same feeling of being “the gifted.” The gift could indeed be a “prison of air,” paraphrasing Cortázar. A prison where we lose track of time unintentionally, where algorithms amplify polarized and misleading messages, where one in ten adolescents suffers cyberbullying, and young people are both perpetrators and victims of new forms of violence.
The Digital Wellbeing of Minors
Beyond failing to eliminate stereotypes, social media exacerbates certain inequalities. As explained by Milagros Sáinz from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), “The excessive importance placed on physical appearance and the objectification and sexualization of women’s bodies in social media makes girls particularly vulnerable to certain mental health issues.”
These are the topics explored in some of the articles we’ve published on digital wellbeing for minors. Through over sixty texts, we have aggregated multidisciplinary knowledge on digital wellbeing contributed by sociologists, educators, psychologists, pediatricians, legislators, cybersecurity experts, psychiatrists, and linguists.
What Minors Have to Say
While valuing the insights from expert debates, we want to emphasize how much we’ve gained by listening to young people. In one of our recent events, when asked what message they would send “to their past selves,” a teenager responded:
“I’d send it to my parents and the parents of my friends (laughs). I’d tell them that a smartphone is a dopamine and stimuli bomb, something a child can’t regulate. I’d ask, ‘Why not wait a few more years?'”
Her classmates nodded in agreement as she continued, “Recently, I went with friends to the Albaicín in Granada to watch a beautiful sunset. We encountered a child in a stroller, mesmerized by a screen… It’s heartbreaking that adults make this decision for them and deprive them of real experiences.”
She concluded by saying that in her generation, environment, and even on social media, voices are emerging that advocate for screen-free time, value disconnection, and question what screens offer compared to what they take away. They speak of reconnecting with others, in-person contact, and nature. There’s hope…
Understand First, Use Later
After a year of attentive listening, the young people’s demands echo in my mind, far from “Everything’s fine” or “Leave us alone, we know what we’re doing.” A 14-year-old boy pleaded, “Please explain how the internet works – and that data economy thing, security, and privacy – before giving us a smartphone (and give it to us later rather than sooner).” “I envy my parents, who were teenagers in a world without smartphones,” admitted a group of 4th-grade students.
When asked if they’d press a hypothetical button that would make all their friends and themselves stop using social media, 90% responded affirmatively. A girl lamented, “I disconnect during dinner, but my parents don’t: it’s hard to talk to them because work messages keep coming.” Her peers echoed, “Me too,” “Same here,” “It’s the same in my house.”
Experts agreed that if there were one habit to change globally, it would be family dinners without screens.
Moreover, Estrella Montolío from the University of Barcelona emphasized that “the mere presence of a silent phone divides participants’ attention between real people and virtual ones. This silent phone ‘inhibits the possibility of initiating and sharing conversations of interest because participants subconsciously suspect the device might summon its owner from a parallel virtual universe at any moment.'”
Knowledge for Control
To avoid being the gifted when given a smartphone, knowledge is our best defense. Understanding data economics, scrutinizing algorithms, and critically analyzing our privacy sacrifices will enable us to take control and consciously decide how, where, when, and with what content we use technology (and allow minors to use it).
“We aim to educate citizens and citizens capable of using technology competently, appropriately, and responsibly in their daily lives,” said Victoria Marín Juarros from the University of Lleida, proposing ideas for fostering a critical perspective on technology in classrooms and at home.
