The group of parents Smartphone Free Childhood has launched an advertising campaign that challenges one of the most normalized, and also questioned habits, of current parenting: deliver a mobile phone to a child or adolescent, as if it were something harmless. The PSA (public service announcement), entitled “Let’s Change the Norm”, uses irony to expose an uncomfortable truth. And when we give a smartphone to children, we are asking them in some way that they manage adult responsibilities in a world designed to overflow them.
Teenagers spend 4.8 hours a day on social networks
From the age of 11 – meaning in which the first smartphone is obtained – minors are exposed to a complex online environment, saturated with notifications, addictive algorithms and inappropriate content, such as pornography. The result is that adolescents spend 4.8 hours a day on social networks and almost 50% claim to be online almost constantly. According to studies cited by the organization, receiving a smartphone before the age of 13 is associated with worse mental health results, including suicidal thoughts and a decrease in self -esteem.
But 95% of adolescents between 13 and 17 already use social networks, and almost 40% of children between 8 and 12 years ignore age restrictions to access these platforms. What makes the phone a source of isolation, anxiety and fragmentation of care.
With Tessa Films production and Tim Mason’s direction (Mortal Fearless), the piece points directly to the core of the problem: digital culture has invaded childhood, and adults -padres, educators and society- have yielded control to large technological ones. But it also launches an empowerment message: “We are not helpless. We can change the course. We can delay the use of the smartphone and defend a more present, free and healthier childhood.”
The campaign invites you to rethink the trend. Because the truly radical is no longer that a child has mobile, but consider that, perhaps, he is not yet prepared to load with him.
