It lit a spark between the families and things went from strength to strength. The maxim that until just a year ago was considered inevitable, that the jump of boys and girls from primary school to secondary school was accompanied by the delivery of the first mobile phone, has begun to crack. “At what point have we normalized this situation?” are increasingly being asked by families, concerned about the impact of social networks on their sons and daughters.
The initiative, carried out through afas and WhatsApp groups, breaks with the tacit rule of giving the first ‘smartphone’ in 1st year of ESO
An obvious example of this concern is the 600 people that in just two days they answered the survey on the issue prepared by the afas coordinator of the Gràcia district, in Barcelona. A survey that, among other things, reflects that one of the main reasons that lead families to buy a mobile phone for their children when they start 1st year of ESO is social pressure. No one wants their child to be “the only one.” The conclusion is drawn by itself and seems even simple (although it is evidently not): if we all do it due to social pressure, Let’s all stop doing it and problem solved.
That’s what they are at. Not only in the Gràcia afas coordinator. Concern about the unhealthy relationship of teenagers with cell phones runs throughout the country. Another recent sample: in the Sant Martí district, also in Barcelona, a whatsapp group similar had 736 participants of the entire city. The group was created, from a conversation in the park, by Elisabet García Permanyer, mother of the neighborhood Poblenou worried because she didn’t want to have to buy her son a cell phone when he got to 1st year of ESO. The name of the group leaves no room for doubt: Poblenou, mobile-free adolescence.
The objective of this threat of revolution is clear: create critical mass to change consensus. What to have a mobile phone for 12 years stop being “normal.” Martha Hernandezmember of the board of the afa of the Queen Violant school and spokesperson for the coordinator of Funny, She is convinced that it is possible and gives the example of Sadako charter school; where the efforts of a mother, in this case Mònica Marqués, made possible what seemed impossible, This year, practically no 1st year ESO child at school has a mobile phone. (only new students have it, whose families did not participate in this process last year).
Pioneering experience
The method followed by Marquis It was the one they are trying to start now in the coordinator, since they are following in their footsteps. “When I started to propose it two years ago, they told me that it was impossible, but I sent the survey to the class group and 99% of the families who responded agreed on their desire to delay the arrival of the mobile phone“recalls this mother, who speaks with passion about the experience and does not hesitate to advise all interested families.
With the clear results of this survey, Marquès went to the center’s management and there began the successful Disconnect@’t project. “It was about dismantle the typical ‘I’m the only one in the class who doesn’t have it’; turn the tables,” he says.
It’s about stopping giving a 12-year-old child a cell phone as normal.
Although it is evident that it is much easier to promote such an initiative in a charter school, in which the 6th grade classes are the same as those of 1st ESO and the change of cycle does not mean changing centers or partners; the idea can be extrapolated if works at the neighborhood level, as they are trying to do in Funny or in the Poblenou, convinced that this is a social problem that the entire community must solve. If they do this work in all the schools in the area, as they are beginning to do, creating complicities, nothing will happen because then the children mix when they arrive at the institute because they will all be in the same boat.
The key: be one more
Clara is 11 years old – she will turn 12 in December – she has just started 1st of ESO in a Gràcia Institute, he doesn’t have a cell phone and he doesn’t hate his parents for it. The secret? Of her group of friends, only two have a cell phone. “It’s a bit annoying because to meet up I have to be asking my parents for their cell phone all the time, but it’s not that annoying either,” says the little girl, who confesses that yes it has TikTok and Instagram although only to see what is going on, not to share anything, and that she consults on the devices of her patient parents, aware that protecting her daughter means losing her own privacy by socializing her cell phone.
Related news
Although today cases like that of Sadako or Clara’s group of friends are a clear minority, the awareness that the abuse of screens by minors is a major problem that ‘someone’ has to put a stop to is increasingly widespread, not only in environments such as Gràcia or Poblenou. In these specific neighborhoods, there are also families with the training and organizational culture to initiate these changes.
In parallel, secondary schools are experiencing a similar debate process, in some cases also motivated by families. While waiting for the Department of Education to rule on its use, each institute is regulating it in the way it considers most appropriate.