'Connected, the Invisible Trap'

Lucía spent up to 8 hours connected to her mobile phone, equivalent to a full working day. This is an experience that repeats daily in many households with minors. The inappropriate and early use of screens has raised alarms among professionals who, supported by scientific evidence, are warning of the situation: issues such as anxiety, aggression, decreased attention, or learning have surged in recent years. In Spain, one in three secondary school students may already have a "problematic use of the Internet," and half of the young people spend more than five hours a day on their mobile phones, according to a UNICEF report.

Faced with this scenario, professionals are calling for urgent measures: delaying the delivery of smartphones, regulating age verification, strengthening family and educational support, and promoting a "digital de-escalation." Prevention, they conclude, is the only way to protect the health and holistic development of children, and young people can and should be part of the solution. Initiatives like the 'The Challenge' project by the "la Caixa" Foundation are examples where, through social transformation projects and technology as a vehicle, adolescents create the necessary tools to help and contain the problems generated by these screen abuses.

Experts such as neuroscientist David Bueno, a pioneer in studying the impact of technology on brain development, along with other specialists like psychologists Esther Gónzalo and Alicia Banderas, adolescent-specialized pediatrician María Angustias Salmerón, or Mar España, director of Control Z, engage in a necessary dialogue with young people and representatives of technology platforms like Meta's public affairs director, José Luis Zimmermann. The problem is not the technology itself but its abusive and unsupervised use.

For the creation of this documentary, the following sources were used: Spanish Association of Pediatrics, Caritas, General Council of Psychology, FAD, Social Observatory of the "la Caixa" Foundation, WHO, ONTSI, RED.es, UNAD, UNICEF.

Links of Interest:

Family Digital Plan

Help for Parents with New Technologies

Content Reporting

Cybersecurity Advice and Help

Illegitimate Content Dissemination