The overprotection to which children are subjected today children y youths in the real world contrasts with the lack of protection they face in the networks and in its parallel reality, the virtual one. The neurologist ofl Hospital Santa Lucía de Cartagena María Cerdán considers that there is no balance in this sense and parents are often not aware that not even with parental control can they be safe, since “in many cases it doesn’t even work“.
Cerdán participated yesterday in the Conference on Screens in Childhood and Adolescence: a Public Health Issue, held at the College of Physicians of the Murcia Region and in which he was together with health specialists such as the dean of the Official College of Psychology, María Fuster; the pediatrician and member of the Association of Out-of-hospital Pediatrics of the Region of Murcia (Apermap); and the psychiatrist Cartagena Santiago Pina.
“Internet It is an open bar and they can access any page. It is not necessary for a minor to search for information about pornography, mmany children access sexual content unintentionally, they find it there“says the neurologist of the Cartagena hospital.
Regarding the recommended time so that use does not turn into abuse, Dr. Cerdán points out that OMS is blunt. “The recommendation is zero screens for children under 2 years of age,” while insisting that “seeing a child in the stroller with a cell phone should irritate us like it does when we see a pregnant woman smoking.”
Together with María Cerdán he also sat yesterday at the Cartagena pediatrician Cristina Contesotto College of Physicianswho acknowledges being amazed at the increase in the use of electronic devices among minors, and at increasingly younger ages.
However, it is not a problem that worries parents or that they raise in consultations when they go to see the pediatrician. “They are not aware of the problem, nor do they consider it. It is us, the doctors, who see that any incident or the slightest crying is always resolved with the screens.”
For Contesotto this is the ‘connected loneliness’, like when the kids meet in a park and four or five friends are sitting on a bench without looking at each other’s faces, each using their cell phone and without interacting with each other.
Necessary boredom
Various specialists agree that boredom is necessary, boredom is the cradle of creativity. “But we don’t allow them to get bored, they want to be distracted by screens all the time and so they don’t learn to react to daily situations and they get frustrated.”
Both neurologists and pediatricians do not agree with the abuse that is also made of screens in the educational field, both in schools and institutes. “The problem with digitizing education is that in the morning children They spend hours in front of a screen and in the afternoon as well, which leads to them losing their reading ability and vocabulary,” says Cristina Contesotto.
Dr. Cerdá also agrees with this, who remembers that the abuse of screens has effects on a physical, social and mental level. Children develop sleep problems, There are more diagnoses of ADHD, higher rates of obesity as a consequence of a sedentary lifestyle, which also leads to more cardiovascular risks. And to this are added low back pain due to poor posture and language problems.
“When we detect a language problem, the first thing we do is remove the screens and return the child to a consultation some time later. The change is incredible. They don’t need screens but parents who are available and more presentthat they are not so focused on housework and pay attention to their children, since this attention is essential in the first years of life,” insists the pediatrician.
