53% of Spaniards suffer from anxiety or even panic every time they don’t have their mobile phone at hand, according to the Center for Anxiety Disorders Studies. Do you think it is exaggerated? Well, according to the figures of the last report of ‘The Information Society’ in Spain, we consult our smartphones an average of one hundred and fifty times a day.
Currently, 67% of those under 15 years of age already have their own mobile phone, while reaching that age 90% of teenagers already have their own smartphone. This is demonstrated by the latest survey of ‘Equipment and use of information and communication technologies’, published by the INE last December.
This study also reveals that 72% of children at age 8 (or even less) already know how to handle smartphones and tablets, and their relationship with these devices is getting closer.
“The main feature that allows us to determine that there is a problem is to see if the use of the tool is replacing activities that that child or that teenager was normally doing,” explains the president of Protégeles. That is, when the child prefers to use a tool such as the mobile or the computer to anything else and that prevents him from staying with his friends or playing a football game, we are facing a significant symptom that there is a problem in relation to the technology.
It is important that parents establish both places and times when technology cannot be used. The president says that the so-called ‘mobile dormitories’ are becoming habitual: places where all the terminals of the house are left at night, charging but without being used from a certain time. It is also not advisable to allow children to use their cell phones in the bathroom or while they eat, because if they do not lose family communication. For Cánovas, it is best to always use them in a “visible and common place in the house”.
Phonbies 