Smartphone Use in Young Children: A Digital Barrier Between the Real World and Growth
In today’s society it is increasingly common to see very young children left by their parents in a high chair or stroller with a smartphone in their hands. A healthy walk in the park risks becoming just more time spent staring at a screen, depriving them of the chance to discover the wonders of nature.
While it is understandable that parents may need a few minutes of rest, it is hard not to realise that, in the long run, this behavior can lead to considerable risks for children’s health.
Let us look at some of the dangers hidden in allowing the youngest children to use technological devices for extended periods.
Isolation from the Real World
When we pick up a smartphone, what we do is access an extremely vast digital world. There is no doubt that this can be useful, but the dangers are countless and, unfortunately, hard to perceive.
The first observation I would like to make is that when we interact with content appearing on a screen (smartphone, PC, tablet), we are placing something between ourselves and the real world around us. Our experience is concentrated into one small point from which we receive a constant stream of stimuli: information that our brain must process at great speed, trying not to get lost.
Entering the virtual world is a journey. Getting there is not so complicated; in fact, it is the easy part. Getting out, on the other hand, is the real difficulty.
Let us briefly see what happens.
A thought crosses our mind: checking whether a notification has arrived. It is an almost automatic gesture: we pick up the smartphone and unlock the screen. That is the moment the actual entry into the virtual world takes place. We ideally lift ourselves out of the real world to explore another one, governed by different laws. Here everything is much faster: our “virtual self” can move easily between different contexts, jumping from one piece of information to another, among images, videos and sounds.
Even the actions we perform seem lighter. The harm we can cause ourselves or others does not disappear completely, but everything is softened, transformed into a sequence of 0s and 1s with no tangibility.
Our mind is thus slowly overwhelmed by the thoughts and information continuously presented to us. The original purpose that made us pick up the phone is long forgotten. Without realizing it, several minutes have already gone by during which we remained disconnected from the world around us.
Then, for a moment, we come to our senses.
We realize that life is going on around us. It is time to return to reality: we have to turn off the screen.
But it is hard to let go.
How can we not check whether the page we follow on social media has posted something? What if a new message had arrived? What if there were a video we haven’t seen yet?
More time passes.
We keep checking until there are no more apps to open, social networks to browse or web pages to visit. When we have finally exhausted every possible reason to stay there, we painstakingly turn off the screen and return to the real world.
A world that now seems slow, almost boring. There are none of those images and sounds that were flowing before our eyes. Movements are not as fluid as before, and what in the virtual world we could achieve with a simple touch requires, in reality, time, effort and a far greater expenditure of energy.
Then we remember the original reason we picked up the phone. We unlock the screen again and, this time, head straight for our goal. Or at least, we hope so.
How many of us have never had a similar experience?
What is worrying is that anyone can be dragged, against their will, into this “astral journey.” What I have described is the whirlpool of which any adult is unknowingly a victim. But if this happens to a mature mind, how could a very young person find the strength not to be a victim as well?
One of the big differences regarding the use of today’s technological devices is that those born before the year 2000 came to them gradually. They had the chance to live through every step of the technical evolution that took us from the first mobile phones to these miracles of science we now carry in our pockets.
There was time to understand how they work and to watch them transform. We approached the most advanced technologies as adults, only after having experienced the real world as children: playing ball, scraping our knees riding a bicycle. Understanding the difference between physical/real pain and virtual pain.
Young people born after 2000 have not had this. They have been immersed in this virtual world since birth. And those who led them there are us adults, responsible for having raised a wall before their eyes.
Leaving a young child in front of a screen means erecting a barrier between them and the real world.
And this barrier is imposed on them at a time of life when experiencing the real is essential, in order to know the world and oneself.
Letting an unformed mind spend an indefinite amount of time in the virtual world, which as we have seen is capable of sucking in an adult mind, can only cause harm to the child.
The same experience described above is also lived by the fragile mind of a child. And the effects on the child, who has not had the chance, as we adults have, to experience the real world and to get to know this technology gradually, with all the pros and cons it brings, can be very dangerous.
If we ourselves struggle to detach from the screen, how can we expect a child to manage it?
One could counter this argument by claiming that in the 1990s, too, children were left in front of the television watching cartoons. That was not healthy for children either.
It is true, and I cannot help but agree. But I believe it is necessary to make a distinction between:
Watching a videotape
Watching a children’s TV channel with programming broadcast 24 hours a day
A videotape has a defined length. When the child starts watching the film, it is already known that it will end in about two hours. A children’s TV channel, on the other hand, has continuous programming. At any hour of the day or night there are cartoons or programs being broadcast. The fact that there is no clearly defined end could lead to the same effect we experience today with smartphones. So I agree that the effects of leaving children in front of a smartphone, where they can search among millions of videos on online streaming platforms for whatever they like best, are very similar to what children experienced in the 1990s when they had full control of the TV remote at home and could watch whatever they wanted.
But the big difference between the two cases is the portability of the smartphone: while in the 1990s a child could watch cartoons and be hypnotised by the TV only at home, today children can do so anywhere, even in situations such as a Sunday at the park, an ideal moment for discovering nature and doing sports.
The risk of remaining glued to a screen for hours, and consequently isolated from the real world, is very high.
Content creators and Algorithms as the New Educators
As we discussed in the previous chapter, leaving children in front of a smartphone essentially means letting them watch cartoons or very similar content aimed at young children.
If the viewing of this online content is continuous, there is a serious risk that, over time, those who create these videos, “content creators,” may take the place of the education that parents and family members should provide to little ones.
Any video content, from a cartoon to a children’s program, carries a story, and some of them a lesson. Those who were children in the 1990s remember well today how hard Simba had to struggle to reclaim the title of Lion King, taken by force by his wicked uncle.
The content of The Lion King and of many other cartoons that marked our childhood is something we carry inside us like an indelible mark on our conscience. In some way, it shaped us culturally. In watching a cartoon, a child finds not only a pleasant break from the countless inputs received from the real world, but also a small moment of formation.
The choice of the video to show a child is something that must be analyzed very carefully. Leaving your child to watch an online video also means that, during that time, their mind is touched and marked by messages created by content creators outside the family unit.
The form and the content may differ greatly from the message the parents would have wanted to teach their child.
Letting a child watch endlessly whatever an algorithm proposes to them is not ideal.
Every parent is afraid of making mistakes, and I think nobody is truly ready when they find their first child in their arms. Nevertheless, the parent-child relationship remains fundamental, and no one should ever take the place of mom and dad. Both in choosing the video to show their children and in the way the video is absorbed, parents must take on the important role of supervisors and educators.
Letting others take their place could lead to feelings of confusion and bewilderment in the child, who is unable to understand which is the right path to follow.
Smartphone Addiction
It is pointless to deny it: the virtual world has its appeal. Whatever we wish to search for, we can easily find. And the ease with which we get what we are looking for creates in us a sense of gratification that we can hardly find in the real world for the same amount of effort.
What allows us to reach this virtual world most easily, as we have seen, is the smartphone. Our inseparable life companion, always within reach. Precisely because it lives in symbiosis with us, it takes part in our joys and our sorrows.
In our daily lives, our mood is constantly changing. Our state of mind shifts and, with it, so do the things we do. Since we always have a smartphone within reach, the way we use it changes too: what we look for on the screen may depend far more than we imagine on how we feel at that moment.
For example: when we are tired, we find it pleasant to spend time watching the silliest things, trying to switch off our thoughts. When we are sad, we watch something that can lift our spirits. When we are cheerful and feel like treating ourselves, we browse some online store to buy something. Of course, it is not only the content of the search that changes, but also the time spent in the virtual world: when we are on vacation we tend to live the real world more, swimming in the sea or hiking in the mountains; when we are at home bored, there is a risk of spending entire days staring at a screen.
For children, too, a relationship can develop between mood and smartphone use. When they throw tantrums, the tendency is to hand them the phone so they can calm down. When parents need some quiet because, say, the family is out for dinner at a restaurant, out comes the smartphone with the best videos saved in playlists to show the child. In this way, their silence is guaranteed for the duration of the dinner.
But this approach prevents us from understanding what may be causing the child’s distress: what they think, what they desire, what they would like to experience. We have a duty to better understand their state of mind by interacting with them. If instead of trying to understand them we switch them off by giving them the phone, as we have seen, we are erecting a barrier between them and the real world, between them and us.
Moreover, if the child comes to associate throwing a tantrum with getting what they want, namely watching a cartoon, they might exploit this situation to get what they want. The risk also runs the other way: if they associate feelings such as joy and carefreeness with the use of the smartphone, they might carry this belief with them as they grow, turning it into a habit.
Parents should not encourage this kind of behavior. We have seen how prolonged use of technological devices isolates us from the real world. Placing a child who is showing distress in front of a screen, without trying to understand the cause of that discomfort, can have two serious consequences:
I. numbing the child’s mind, canceling out feelings and emotions through watching a video and not letting them experience the real world
II. failing to understand the child’s behaviour, avoiding grasping the origin of their emotions
Let us allow children to be free to express themselves with the primitive means they have at their disposal. Let us not be afraid to let them have experiences: they are sponges who deserve to absorb all the good and evil of the world. It is the parents’ task to educate them by giving them the right moral values. Let us not allow algorithms to raise them.
I am sure that, in doing so, parents and children will grow together.
Prolonged use of smartphones or digital devices by young children is causing serious problems of attention and learning that cannot be ignored. The difficulties that young people who grew up with these technologies are experiencing are, I think, evident and plain for all to see.
I urge us not to blame them or hold them responsible for every negative behavior. Let us try to get to the root of the problem by analyzing its origin.
Those interested in the topic can explore further and find evidence for what has been presented here by reading these two articles:
