The revolution of families who clamor to delay the arrival of mobile phones to their children has one of its references in the clinical psychologist and specialist in the prevention of suicidal behavior Francisco Villar (Barcelona, 1976). Villar, who has just published the book Com les screens devouren els nostres fills (Herder), is in favor of banning cell phones completely up to the age of 16 and allowing parental controls until the age of 18. And he bases his position on his consulting experience. Father of four children between 3 and 9 years old, he assures that in his house there are no screens as a distraction, alerts to the problem of cyberbullying and is committed to more face-to-face communication. The psychologist believes that the ban on cell phones will come.
How do screens devour ours?
The raw material of technology companies, which try to sell us things, is the time of the human being. And that is time in front of the cell phone that our little ones need to develop, to learn. If you give him a screen so he can go through a journey without complaining, you are robbing him of the opportunity to train tolerance for frustration, waiting...
Families are mobilizing to stop cell phones before the age of 16 and using their own arguments.
This is a hunch that there was. And the families say “you haven't said anything that we don't know, but we didn't know we could change it.” We all know the damage that screens are doing. I can't be accompanying kids who are trying to end their own lives, see how screens interfere with this and leave it at that. It would fail the commitment I have with them.
It is said that they must be educated in its use.
It is absolutely unrealistic to think that you can educate a child to use these devices.
Because?
The people who advocate educating have not made education programs or tested them. And he forgets who is in front of him. Different applications compete for people's attention. Their design or content capacity goes far beyond what we can do.
Many people think that banning up to 16 is not real.
How can it not be real and feasible, if compulsory schooling is up to 16?!
Why do you bet on 16?
The maximum peak of suicidal behavior is found between 14 and 15 years of age. These are moments of great vulnerability. We have to provide frames of reference that are as unjust as possible.
Many appeal to parental responsibility.
(Pick up phone) This is super powerful. Why do we give it to a child? They access porn, to anyone who wants to harm them. You give something to a child with which you have a new phenomenon called cyberbullying and you don't take it back immediately? We have children locked up at home, who don't want to go to school, who have fights with their parents because they are in front of a screen all day. It's great to empower parents, but they feel overwhelmed by social pressure. And this makes us fight. Pediatricians say that parents are the irresponsible ones. The parents who “are the cabbages” and the cabbages who “are the parents.” Because the fights that they have to manage in the school environment have been generated the day before, at 12 at night on social networks.
What problems does removing the cell phone save?
All those that have to do with sleep. 60% of children go to sleep with a mobile device. And we know how important sleep is for human beings and in periods of evolution. And cyberbullying. You give him a cell phone to communicate and the child makes a humiliating meme and throws it into outer space to another classmate. A screen at home is a theft from family relationships. We have a problem with the desire of the population, especially the adolescent population. They are desiring. And the more I satiate, the more the desire is eliminated. What's the problem with our children wanting something they will have when they grow up? We want them to be able to use it with some responsibility.
Is it at 16 years old that you have the capacity to manage it?
No, from the age of 16 they have more capacity than at 12 or 15. That is why I advocate for parental controls up to the age of 18. I talk to 23-year-old kids who tell me “Fran, the cell phone was a big deal to me. damage and I have removed it.” I love reading, but if I read with my cell phone on the office table, I'm looking at it every four pages. If I leave it in the hall, I read more calmly. But those protection mechanisms can be used by us or by a kid over 23. For a 13-year-old it is science fiction.
There are studies that say that the addiction of screens to the level of drugs is not proven.
You have to know how to interpret and read the studies because they tell you about world reality. In Spain, England and Holland we have seen that banning mobile phones in class improves. And social networks do a lot of damage. Our kids in our sociocultural environment sit with their parents to watch a documentary zero times a week. And they are on social media all day. The use that our teenagers are making is harmful. It increases suicidal behavior, I see it every day. And it starts cyberbullying.
Networks are what worries families the most.
Amnesty International has done tests and says that if a boy posts content about suicide on TikTok, in less than 20 minutes they are in a whirlwind of suicidal ideation and self-harm. In less than 20 minutes you are in the well. In all these TikTok groups, the ones you are seeing there are teenagers like you without knowing the damage they are doing to others, because they believe they are expressing their own. Digitalization is not a simple thing. It goes through life in all human aspects. Don't we have enough of bullying? Because the only thing social networks have done is cyberbullying. For a child to have a mobile phone at the age of 12 generates cyberbullying and online sexual harassment.
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And the brain is being deprogrammed. The human being has to be able to do an in-depth reading. Reading tweets and headlines is not reading. You need to go deeper into a text to be able to integrate it, so that it begins to generate your own criteria. The critical sense has to do with questioning what I have inside. And if the protection measure for these devices is to put the date of birth... They put them allegedly insufficient because they want you to access. Or parental controls: they go on YouTube and teach them how to remove them.
Who should promote this change?
Parents and teachers are demanding that they give us legislative guidance to make it easy for us. This thing about a mother having to be a hero if she protects her daughter from this in front of the group... This belongs to everyone!
There are families who see it as an individual decision.
If they feel capable, let them do it. But there are people who need help and legislation. In our sociocultural context, the cell phone is a risk and bad for your child. Some say that if it were bad it would be banned like tobacco, but tobacco was already bad before it was banned. We have to learn from the achievements achieved.
In order to legislate there has to be a public health problem. There is?
Obviously, and not seeing it... It affects your sleep, your development...
Does it put all screens at the same level of harmfulness?
Not because the cell phone is clandestine. And if you give them a cell phone where they can only receive calls, they are going to forget it, they are not going to charge it, because they do not want control. To the technology companies I say: one, thank you for helping me work. And two, leave our boys alone! We are already in charge of transmitting values to them, of teaching them.
Are there no screens in your house?
mine. I took them off my children (9, 7, 5 and 3). I am a child psychologist and I realized late how much harm they were doing to them.
He is very critical of digitalization
It directly affects us in the development of basic skills. When the screens are removed, life springs forth. My colleagues at specialized child care centers have had children come for evaluation of autism spectrum disorder and they have had to include two months of screen abstinence in the evaluation protocol. When you take the toxic away from children, we no longer have to do the assessment.
With what age?
Two and three years. Because they are already placed in the car stroller walking with the screen. A child has to move, he has to interact. And sometimes he is not bored but stuffed. You put a lot of stimuli into it, you collapse it, its receptors fall and it needs more intensity in the stimuli. These are also the basics of porn. It's not about giving more but less.
The argument for giving the mobile phone is so that they do not stay out of that world.
Look how they steal the story from us! It turns out that now being connected is being with a screen. Being connected is exchanging a glance, it is touching skin, it is seeing an emotional reaction from another. They tell you “if you're not here, you're out.” But life is outside! If they can choose, they choose mobile. And with all the criteria, because it is made to exceed the satisfaction that life gives you, at least immediately. In the long term and in the long term, obviously not, because it is destroying it. That children have to choose what is good for them is negligent. If you treat a teenager like an adult, you are disrespecting them. He's not acknowledging her moment. This person is going to improve with respect to himself in the coming years, because he is going to finish neurologically shaping the prefrontal part of the brain, which is what helps us manage other emotions, to plan.
In your consultation, what type of cases do you see related to mobile phone use?
I shouldn't treat all the kids I treat with cyberbullying. Girls who are subjected to some super unpleasant situations. When they see their video uploaded to all the networks of that humiliation, that's when they say “this isn't worth it.” Published on networks it becomes impossible for the person to manage.
At what ages?
We begin to serve in the suicidal behavior care program from the age of 11, 12. 13, 14, 15 maximum peak, 16 and 17 decrease little. Colleagues have removed Linkedin because they have felt like professional failures. Imagine this at 13 years old! If I have to evaluate whether my life is adequate or not by comparing it with social networks... Social networks are increasing the pain of our adolescents with all the new form of victimization and with the increase in all this discomfort. A survey said that half of kids often decide that they spend more time online than with their friends. If I spend a lot of hours here, I am losing the possibility of connecting with someone who can truly love me, because the one here (mobile) doesn't love you.
Are girls affected more than boys?
Much more. Society is very cruel to you in many aspects. We are now at more than 90% of girls in our population exhibiting suicidal behavior.
Is it a first step to regulate it in institutes?
It is a gesture so that we begin to know what we are talking about.
Are you optimistic that the ban will come?
Super. There are countries that are already doing it. In Holland they have said that they prohibit it and give themselves a year to think. If they do not want to prevent suicide... even if it is for the protection of privacy and the fundamental rights of our children. Their reading comprehension worsens, their academic performance worsens, and it makes them interact less. It is stealing their sexuality and generating harassment.
What can be done until then?
Resist. We are in pure action. Banning will help a lot, as happened with tobacco.
