“Teenagers are not going to admit it to you in public, but many do like the measure,” says Dr. Estefanía García, a psychiatrist for children and adolescents in the city of Bogotá, by phone. García is referring to the measure that an association of private schools in the Colombian capital has announced to prohibit, or considerably restrict, the use of mobile phones during the eight hours of the school day for all its students, from the youngest to the one who is already leaving. to graduate Eight glorious hours without uploading photos on Instagram, without responding to WhatsApp messages, without imitating dances on TikTok. A measure that has generated very little opposition in Colombian society, if not none, but many doubts about what the roadmap is.
García is a member of a small association called Adoleciencia that has been explaining the benefits of making this great disconnection, and among his patients are groups of young people from the first private schools who decided to try it. “At first the students tell me ‘this is the last straw!’, and then in consultation they tell me ‘what a relief that they force me to do this, I can’t do this alone!’” says García. After a few days they begin to feel a mental weight being lifted, not having to respond to a voice message immediately, or wait likes in a profile photo. When they move away from the screen, they begin to enjoy recess time in a different way, with moments of boredom and spaces to see their friends face to face, and not behind the Instagram filter. “They do not admit it in public, because this is a restrictive measure that adults are imposing, and adolescents by nature have to go against authority,” adds García. “To admit it to your friends would be to ally yourself with the oppressors.”
The oppressors, that is, parents and teachers, also agree with the oppressed: it must be positive to disconnect eight hours or more a day from the addictive social networks that your cell phone loads. García explains that there is little scientific research in Colombia on mental deterioration for young people, so the youth disconnection initiative is being dragged down by international research that links the excessive use of social networks with an increase in the probability of use of other substances. addictive, or suicidal ideations. UNESCO, in 2023, promoted disconnection after to verify how excessive use of cell phones worsens school performance according to the PISA educational tests.
García understands the damage from a medical point of view. “The indiscriminate and excessive use of cell phones generates structural changes in the brains of children and adolescents, who are still in a process of neurological formation,” he says. The brain has learning processes called neuronal pruning, he adds, which gives importance to the connections that are used the most and leaves aside those that are used less. “If the prunings that have to do with immediacy, speed, or virtual connection are strengthened, and those that have to do with looking at another’s face, being present with someone, exercising social skills are left aside, it pays an area that rewards impulsiveness, in which the attention span is diminished,” he adds. Studies repeat, says García, that the longer parents delay giving a cell phone to a teenager, the more they protect them in terms of mental health.
UNCOLI, Union of International Schools, which brings together 27 private institutions in Bogotá, says that excessive use of social networks decreases interest in physical activity and increases bullying and cyberbullying, according to a recent statement which calls ‘disconnect to connect’. “The conversation between rectors has been going on for some time about this topic, and perhaps this year we have seen more of the negative effects on the students,” says Camilo Camargo, president of UNCOLI and rector of the Los Nogales school. He adds that each school will restrict in its own way – some will ask to leave the cell phone in the locker, others will prohibit it from even appearing on the bus route – and that they do not want to wage war on technology: tablets or computers will continue to be used for pedagogical purposes. “With students, we are already in a process to explain to them the impact of mobile phones,” he adds.
Much of what has prompted schools to take the leap is a best seller world by New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation. It is a book that brings together all the research that talks about the increase in anxiety in young people who did not have any type of cell phone restriction in the last decade, since 2009 or 2010, and now suffer from anxiety levels in the sky and They are being treated for worrying depressive symptoms: in the United States, he says, anxiety levels in adolescent men have increased by 161%, and in girls by 145%.
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Haidt argues that there has been a misguided trend over the past two decades: to restrict children from playing in parks or on the streets, for fear that they will have an accident or someone will hurt them, and in exchange offer them a world without restrictions on the social networks, where there is also a lot of damage. The psychologist believes that parents should make a pact to implement virtual restrictions as a group, because it is useless to take away a student’s cell phone if everyone else has access, and find the way in reverse: giving more disconnected freedom, and less freedom virtual. “There is a way out if we act collectively,” he said in an interview with this newspaper. And for this dilemma of collective action “we need the intervention of governments,” he added.
And the Government of Colombia, at least, considers that it cannot intervene in this issue in a uniform manner, as the United Kingdom did in February, when it asked all schools in the country to ban cell phones. “Yes, the use of cell phones must be regulated. We want to decentralize measures in this sense, in each municipality and in each school, but we cannot prohibit it completely because in this country sometimes the only option that some teachers have to access pedagogical material is the teacher’s cell phone,” says Óscar Sánchez, vice minister of preschool, basic and secondary education. Even students in rural schools often receive a story to read or a dictation to practice through their WhatsApp account. How to prohibit cell phones in these precarious conditions?
The great disconnection, in reality, is also a problem of social class. Haidt himself has made it clear that the majority of countries where research has been done on the effect of cell phones are the richest (Norway, South Korea, the United States), leaving aside the solutions that are needed in the richest schools. poor, where the cell phone is more than the home of social networks.
Vice Minister Sánchez, however, sees an interesting change in this movement towards the great disconnection: he considers that previous Governments prioritized purchasing technology for the development of educational institutions, more tablets or more computers, and investment in other important aspects was left aside, such as training for teachers, on which the vice minister wants to invest more.
“Technology has great power, without a doubt, but we have to change the philosophy so that children dominate machines and machines do not dominate children. On this issue there are some teachers who are pioneers, but in general in Colombia we are still in its infancy regarding these policies,” adds the vice minister. Promote technology training for teachers, strengthen the critical sense of students, open meetings on the use of artificial intelligence, all of this is on the Ministry’s table. But both Vice Minister Sánchez, Rector Camargo, and Dr. García agree that none of this will protect Colombia’s young people without the help of another key actor: parents. The same dads and moms who also have an addiction to Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok.
—How do we teach young people to regulate their consumption of social networks when we adults have not learned that?
“It’s very difficult,” says Dr. García. “Not even we know how to use technology well, it is difficult for us to separate ourselves from our devices, and anyone who sees us as dependent is a young brain developing. We have to understand that we are the mirror of our children, to change.”
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