Young people live absorbed by their cell phones. But do only young people suffer from this subordination? Communication, sociology and psychology experts denounce its devastating effects smartphones in the cognitive and social development of children and adolescents. However, there are also studies showing that these devices and their applications cause harm to all ages.
The National Market and Competition Commission (CNMC) has registered more than 62 million mobile lines for around 48 million Spaniards, or a penetration of 127%. According to the Digital 2025: Global digital overview70.5% of the world’s population owns a mobile phone and the average Internet connection time is 6 hours and 38 minutes per day. And, above all, 65% of the population, or over 5.2 billion people, use social networks.
The scene is common in most gatherings between friends and family. Cell phones are on the table and are the protagonists of after dinner. The conversation takes place in suspense coil from the young girl’s Instagram at home or from the latest WhatsApp received from her father. There is no human conversation without an unfaithful glance at the cell phone. There is no discussion that is not countered by a hasty search in the smartphones. No conversation survives without annoying vibrating noises or uncomfortable melodies.
The embarrassment that some feel in the face of such dependence does not only come from younger people. According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), 95% of people between the ages of 65 and 74 use mobile phones and 75% connect to the Internet daily. Every day the submission to this device by adults of all ages grows, who are the ones who should put an end to excessive use by the youngest. For this reason we can understand the teenager’s strong complaint when he is forbidden to use his cell phone while his parents, his uncle or his grandmother chat with him. smartphones in the hand. Faced with this scene, adults lose all legitimacy in limiting or banning the use of these devices among young people.
Our time becomes the business of very few. Big technocrats get rich thanks to our use of social networks which, despite having multiple functions, all aim to transform connection time into income, says researcher Arthur Grimonpont. Millions of people, including the elderly, consume pre-packaged images on their mobile phones on the advice of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that chooses based on their tastes and pleasures. Every day more and more adults fall into the temptation of short videos, direct instant messaging or reading exaggerated or false news.
In Catalonia, the Generalitat has completely banned the use of cell phones in schools and institutes, but at the current rate it will also be necessary to do so at the pensioner’s home. Public powers must take measures because “technology without public control, without ethics, can take on a monstrous form and enslave human beings once again”, stated the philosopher Byung-Chul Han a few days ago. Excessive use of smartphones It mainly affects children and adolescents, but the consequences are already catastrophic for the entire society.
Carles Pont Sorribes is a professor at the Faculty of Communication at Pompeu Fabra University.
