That the debate and concern about mobile phone use in adolescents is increasing and is on the agenda of many families is now an unquestionable reality. After just two weeks ago a movement of parents came together to ask that these devices be banned for children under 16 years of age and that Catalonia has announced that it is going to regulate their use in schools, a change.org campaign started by a teacher Barcelona high school and mother of two children who asks that cell phones be banned by law until the age of 16 has obtained more than 40,000 signatures in one week. More than 30,000 of them in the last 24 hours.
Natàlia Jiménez León is 47 years old and is a biology teacher at a high school in Barcelona. She is also the mother of two children, ages eight and eleven, and it was this “concern,” the personal one, that on November 5 led her to start a petition to sign through change.org to ask that it be banned “by law.” ” the mobile phone in children under 16 years of age. Her eldest son is in sixth grade, but in class he already has classmates with cell phones. And she asks for hers. But her parents believe that he hasn't played yet because he is not mature enough to handle it. “We are concerned about the social pressure that in the first year of ESO you must already have a cell phone,” she tells La Vanguardia Jiménez. It was this and the social movement that is growing against this unestablished norm that you start secondary school with a telephone, which led the teacher to start a campaign that, although she knows that it has no legal significance, she does hope that it will serve to invite reflection on whether it is necessary to start school with a mobile phone.
The campaign started just a week ago and until yesterday it had achieved about 8,000 signatures. But the number has skyrocketed in the last 24 hours and already exceeds 40,000 because the counter does not stop growing. Jiménez's hypothesis regarding the impressive increase is that the concern has already “jumped” to Spain and has circulated among parent groups.
And although her motivation is personal, Natàlia also contributes her vision as a teacher with more than 20 years of experience. She teaches classes in all secondary school years and up to the second year of Baccalaureate and has students from 12 to 18 years old. And she confirms that “technology is affecting performance.” The teacher sees students who are still very “vulnerable” and who find it increasingly difficult to maintain attention: “we have to change dynamics very often because they disconnect,” she explains. This is related to reading comprehension: “they often do not know what is asked of them in a statement because they do not read it to the end.” And she continues: “they must change very quickly and they must be very short things.”
Jiménez does not doubt that these attention problems are influenced by other factors, but he believes that it is evident that technology “affects.” Furthermore, the teacher points out in the petition a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that points out that excessive use of mobile phones can lead to lack of sleep and also stress and depression in adolescents.
At the school where he works this year they have begun to take drastic measures and students cannot carry their phones with them while they are at the center. From the first to the fourth year of ESO they must leave it in a locker and cannot pick it up until the afternoon. The same way of working as this course has been extended to more institutes.
The teacher requests in the petition, which is about to reach 40,000 signatures, that a law be approved that prohibits the use of mobile phones “before the age of 16.” It is not requested that smartphones not enter the centers, but rather a “total ban” is requested. Jiménez, like many experts, points to 16 as the moment of a maturational change in adolescents. Furthermore, it is the period in which compulsory education ends, she says. For the promoter of the petition, the ban on mobile phones for minors under 16 "would help prevent problems related to mental and physical health" in addition to allowing them to "fully enjoy their childhood and adolescence without the pressures associated with these devices." And although she knows that the signatures will not have legal endorsement, she does trust that it will open a real debate among families, for whom she recognizes that pedagogy and training are lacking.
“The problem is not within the school,” he says, although he says that sometimes parents ask centers to mediate, for example, in bullying problems that have arisen on the networks. Because social networks are one of the aspects that most worries Natàlia and many families who, like her, ask for greater regulation of mobile phone use in adolescents.
