Manfred Spitzer and I are discussing at what age children should start utilizing smartphones, how smartphones can ruin our lives and whether changes in law are needed.
Manfred Spitzer
German psychiatrist and neurobiologist (born 27 May 1958). He besides studied psychology and philosophy, doctor of medical discipline and philosophy, guest prof. at Harvard University. From 1990 to 1997, the head of the University Psychiatric Clinic in Heidelberg, in 1997, took over the Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Ulm (as the youngest prof. of this direction in Germany). Since 1998, manager of the University Psychiatric Clinic in Ulm, since 2004 has been head of the Centre for Exchange of cognition from the field of Neuroscience and Education (German: ZNL) conducting investigation in the field of neurodydactics. Author of many technological publications and books popularizing cognition in the field of neurobiology and neurodydactics, including Lernen (Polish edition: How to Learn Brain, PWN, Warsaw 2007), Vorsicht Bildschirm (Note! Screen of TV).
Magda Dolińska-Ridzek, Rafał Górski: At what age can a kid get a smartphone for the first time? And why like that?
Manfred Spitzer: According to medical literature, smartphones origin wellness problems in children and adolescents that can lead to blindness, strokes, heart attacks and dementia at an older age. At the same time, the younger the kid who receives the smartphone, the greater the harm in the future. Smartphones besides affect the learning process and origin intellectual illness specified as concentration disorders, anxiety disorders and depression.
On those grounds,
It would be wise to keep smartphones distant from children and adolescents, i.e. to let them to be utilized only from the age of 16 and even then preferably provided that parents should intervene in case of excessive usage (more than 3 hours a day).
Does a smartphone become addicted to cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine?
This depends on what we mean by “the same”. While dependence on commonly known drugs specified as cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine is due to the effects of these substances on circumstantial centers in the brain, behavioral addictions are taught on the basis of repetitive behaviour. The process of their formation is so different. However, for both types of brain addictions, very akin activity patterns are produced, and Facebook dependence in a CT scan looks the same as cocaine addiction.
So much for the mechanism. From a purely clinical point of view, addiction has a defined definition: 1 cannot be free from it, despite its harmfulness; aggression arises erstwhile 1 has to give it up; addiction becomes more crucial than dealing with friends, siblings or parents, and the behaviour associated with it no longer brings pleasance (as at first), but only aims to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
When we think about treating an alcoholic, we presume that in the treatment process and after the treatment, he should not scope for alcohol in any amount. It's different with kids addicted to smartphones. We accept that an addict kid will get a smartphone for example an hr a day. Why?
This is due to the fact that we inactive do not take the dependence on smartphones seriously.
At the Institute of civilian Affairs, we are considering the preparation of a bill on the fight against digital addiction, in the form of a law on the fight against drug addiction. The fresh bill would cover behavioral addictions and include: smartphones, social media, online games, digital gambling.
What do you say? Is that a good idea? What should be included in the bill to make sense of it?
Such a bill would be very sensible. As with another addictive substances that are legally consumed (alcohol, nicotine), it should primarily set age limits. For example, the ban on smartphones until the age of fourteen and the ban on social media and computer games until the age of sixteen. Finally, in many countries gambling is banned until the age of eighteen.
Currently there is no top-down, government, national ban on smartphones in schools in Poland. Schools are free to decide whether or not to enter any restrictions in the statutes of the institutions.
The civilian Affairs Institute advocates central government regulation, not leaving decisions to individual institutions. Teachers come to us asking what to do erstwhile a parent who threatens to sue a school in court if the facility bans the usage of smartphones. Teachers tell us that a much better solution would be a ban introduced centrally, by law by the Ministry of National Education.
If you were an advisor to the Polish Ministry of Education, what would the Minister of Education recommend?
It would be helpful to introduce a complete ban on smartphones in schools. The students would then have no argument that “others besides have smartphones”.
W Germany has not yet come this far, although any trade union countries (for example Hessen) have imposed specified a ban.
How does the dependence of children on smartphones affect large business, specified as technology corporations: Tik Tok, Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Google (YouTube); smartphone manufacturers: Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi; telecommunications companies: Play, Orange, Plus, T-Mobile?
We're talking about the biggest lobby always on Earth. These companies don't care about the wellness and education of young people, they just want to make money. That is why we gotta tell our children: “You do not want to devote your attention and time, and so your life to profit these companies, do you?” possibly that'll make them think.
What function do NGOs and large business experts play in smartphone dependence? What function do politicians play?
"Experts" financed by lobbyists are not experts, but paid for by opinion makers. Politicians should take their tasks seriously and defend young people from negative influences.
The Institute of civilian Affairs calls for corporations profiting from kid dependence on smartphones and social media to pay a peculiar taxation from which children's treatment and intellectual assistance would be covered. What do you say?
Anything that increases the price of addictive substances and products can reduce their consumption. However, whether this is adequate requires further research.
First of all, we request parents' education.
When mothers and fathers are aware of how harmful the long-term usage of smartphones is – I will repeat: we are talking about the hazard of blindness, stroke, heart attack and dementia – then they will act wisely and defend their children from these devices. So the most crucial thing is to increase cognition and education – this must happen!
