Enough years have passed for smartphones to have gone from being a technological novelty to a vital element for young people in Europe.

As evidence accumulates about the negative effect screens can have on children’s learning, changes in education policy are also accelerating.

Hungary no longer allows mobile phones in primary and secondary schools. Finland gives new powers to teachers to intervene when necessary. France has developed a plan to gradually restrict devices for children under 15.

In Spain, the government wants to make it possible to use the phone “only when the teacher whose pedagogical project requires it”, while Belgium has implemented its own plan to “combat bullying and improve the concentration of students during school hours”. A similar approach can be found in the Netherlands.

However, “no common agreement has yet been reached”, Dámaris García Medina, a psychologist in Toledo (Spain), who regularly works with children and adolescents, tells Evangelical Focus. There are teachers who “choose to make good use of the mobile phone by integrating it into the pedagogical work” so as “not to limit the amount of information” that can be useful during lessons. Others simply ask that educators be free to decide what approach to take.

“Every society is different” and is in its own process of discovering the impact of technologies, says the psychologist. One example is Sweden, where “steps backwards have been taken” after some years of including new technologies in educational routines.

 

A device useful for anything

What is a mobile phone for in the classroom? It depends on who you ask. “Some will have the need to constantly check their mobile phone to ‘see if someone texted or liked my posts’, others can look up information without the need to check Instagram”. Still others “may use it to record a pupil insulting another pupil”.

The number of apps available on the Google or Apple stores is limitless: a mobile phone can be a tool for almost anything, from communicating with parents to betting online, from participating in a kahoot (a tool for answering questions in groups that is widely used in Spanish schools) to accessing erotic contents.

“My opinion regarding the use of screens is that it is not benefiting children and adolescents”, continues Dámaris García. “I’m seeing problems with concentration, reading comprehension, and there are problems at a visual health level”.

Dámaris would continue to use “books on paper, writing on paper, and leaving the use of digital devices as a pedagogical tool at specific times”.

 

The impact on children’s emotional development

Researchers such as Francisco Villar, author of the book Sin pantallas, pienso y siento mejor (Without screens, I think and feel better, 2024), warn that digital consumption leads to less tolerance to frustration and less empathy, “which makes life difficult” for children in an age in which they need to exercise basic social skills. The author’s position is radical: no smartphones for those under the age of 18.

For Dámaris García, the gist of the matter is to find the right balance. In primary school, she would recommend “neither screens nor mobiles” because “it is not until the age of 14 that the brain begins to understand the digital world”.

Although pedagogical use makes sense at certain times during class time, the expert consulted by Evangelical Focus is in favour of creating an environment in which pupils “can put their mobiles away during breaks to make sure they interact face to face”.

 

Not a kids’ problem only

At this point, it is important to be realistic and admit that “adults are the first to be hooked on mobiles”, says García. Children will naturally ‘copy’ their parents, so adults are in fact the “main responsible” for how technology will form part of family routines. In this sense, she suggests adults to ask themselves with honesty: “Do I have my priorities in order?”

“Sometimes, in therapy, I have teenagers who tell their own parents that when they share them something important, the parents are scrolling their phones answering messages, making an order, or checking their social media. It is sad to see how a child says to their parents: ‘I don’t feel listened to’ or ‘it seems that you don’t care about what happens to me’”.

It is essential, adds Dámaris García, that both parents and teachers in education have up-to-date information on the impact of the digital world on minors.

 

All the good things

Are there benefits to using the internet? Of course there are. “The good use of smartphones makes life easier for teenagers”, argues Dámaris García, who is involved with the Student Bible Groups (GBE), focused on adolescents between 12 and 18 years old.

The list is even longer if we extend the focus beyond educational performance. Having a smartphone “increases the teenager’s social network, they can follow what other people they know or family are living elsewhere, they can perhaps look up a person they haven’t seen for a long time to find out how their life is going, they can look up information about personal interests, they can be updated about the world they are living in - because without this knowledge, they would have a hard time finding a job in the future”.

 

What is not going well

However, the list of detriments is also long. “The reality is that I see more and more teenagers with considerable addiction. I have even had minors between 11 and 13 years old, who spent 6 to 11 hours on their mobile phones, in class checking Instagram and TikTok, not paying attention, not knowing how to do their homework, which is reflected in their exam results, leading to low motivation, and finally to low self-esteem and an anxious-depressive state of mind”.

García, who is married and is mother of a two-year-old son, closely observes the trends. “I see a lot of insecure teenagers in my practice, who find it hard to make decisions as simple as what clothes to wear, or what cereal they want for breakfast. They don’t know what emotion they are feeling or what to do with frustration or when they are angry”.

 “The adolescent brain is not equipped to handle as much information as they receive on a daily basis through the devices”

The adolescent brain “is not equipped to handle as much information as they receive on a daily basis through this device”. Many spend hours “looking at and coveting an ‘ideal self’ that doesn’t really exist and end up feeling anxiety, disappointment and depression”.

If this is even a reality among many adults, so much the worse is the problem at ages when they are still learning to process feelings and thoughts.

“Adolescents have a much harder time (because their brains are not ready) setting limits for themselves and others, or even filtering the information they receive through their eyes. There is a reality in terms of the consumption of pornography in children from the age of nine that is frightening and is something that I am seeing”.

García poses the question: “If I don’t know myself, if I don’t know what I want, what friends I want to have, if I don’t know what I’m good at, what qualities and skills I have, and I don’t know how to set limits, can I decide properly when faced with the issues that are put in front of me every time I use my mobile phone?”

What the Bible has to say

We asked the psychologist at this point about her Christian faith, and where she sees the gospel having points of connection with this whole issue.

“I think the challenge today is to be people of integrity and authenticity, without filters. God asks us that our lives should be a testimony of what God is doing in us and I think that on social media we can only transmit a hint of that, but we are not known in our day-to-day lives. If not, why are so many “one day with me” videos posted? We want to know how the person I’m following online lives to see if everything they say they do, they do too”.

“Jesus decided to live and be with people. He could have been with them at specific moments when he was in good spirits, or without unpleasant emotions, however, what makes us believe in Jesus is his honesty, his wisdom and his example, his ultimate expression of love was to die for us”.

García quotes the 2nd Letter of John, chapter 1:12, where the apostle says: ‘Although I have much more to say to you, I do not want to say it by letter. I hope to come and speak to you personally. Then we can rejoice together’.

“God is present in our daily life, even every time we unlock our mobile phone”

“We cannot convey our emotions and what we experienced as honestly as when we meet face-to-face together”, says Damaris. “The pandemic taught us that”.

Jesus himself challenges us not to ‘do works in front of people just for others to see’ (Matthew 6:1). In this sense, the psychologist believes, “perhaps it is good to ask ourselves where our heart is set, what moves us to do what we do, what is our intention. Because God is present in our daily life, even every time we unlock our mobile phone”.

 

Conscious decisions

Dámaris ends by encouraging young people to “find a balance when using social media”, to have a respectful attitude “when it comes to giving others a wake-up call in their use of mobile phones” and to “ask for help if you need it”.

A thoughtful use of the mobile phones would change many things on a societal level, she thinks, because “for many of us smartphones are a work”. “We may not like it, but this is the reality we are starting from, and many young people today see the mobile phone as an extension of themselves”.

In schools, “conscious learning is key, because learning takes time to know how to do something well”. And she concludes: “I think it is very important for adolescents to be aware that if they don’t make the decisions, someone else will make them. Each one of us has to decide what we want to enter through our eyes and ears and to know what things do not suit me in order to take care of the body, mind and spirit that God has given me”.