Laia González Martí is 12 years old and very upset. Tomorrow, like many other boys and girls, she will start Secondary School, specifically at IES Sòl de Riu in her hometown of Alcanar. In her backpack, she will carry many things but not a smartphone because she doesn’t have one. She knows of another boy in the town who is in the same situation as her, but the rest of her ‘seventy-something’ peers (the school has three classes per grade in Secondary School) all use smartphones, some since they were nine years old. “High school will be even tougher than primary school because everyone will have a phone except me. Sometimes they make plans and I don’t find out. For Carnival, they all formed a group and I wasn’t included because they didn’t want parents involved. They have Instagram and TikTok, and I tell my parents that I would be happy with just WhatsApp, but they don’t agree,” says Laia.
The parents in question, Isabel Martí, an administrative assistant, and Oscar González, a farm manager, are part of the growing trend of families who resist accepting the established dogma that every child must have a smartphone at the age of 12. It’s not proving to be easy. “It’s a daily battle. My daughter is outraged and tells me I’m being unfair. We may have two peaceful days, but on the third, the subject comes up again and we go through it all over,” explains Martí.
If she stands firm in her beliefs, it is because she is concerned about “insecurity and dangers” that can come through mobile phones. “When we attend talks, it’s always the same four of us, those who are concerned about these issues. I am lucky that my best friend thinks the same way as me and has a child of the same age. My friend and I are the odd ones out in the town. I try to stay informed. I have watched all the documentaries on cybersecurity, harassment, the one on pornography… I have absorbed it all,” explains Isabel Martí.
It’s a daily battle. My daughter is outraged and tells me I’m unfair. We have quiet days, but on the third day, the issue arises again, and we argue about it”
It refers to Generació Porno, the documentary series aired on TV3 in October about children’s easy access to adult content and its consequences, which sparked a heated debate and had a powerful effect on many families with young children.
The release of the documentary coincided more or less with the beginnings of the first group of Adolescencia Lliure de Mòbils (Mobile-Free Adolescence) in the Poblenou neighborhood in Barcelona. The movement spread throughout the past academic year, and now the association, which was officially established in May, has 50 branches throughout Spain and around 30,000 affiliated families, 23,000 of which are in Catalonia. The majority have signed what they call the “family pact,” in which they commit to delaying the delivery of a smartphone to their children.
Raimon Granjé and Zaida Lopera with their son Arnau. Being separated and sharing custody between two homes is also not a reason for them to give him a smartphone
The network is coordinated through territorial channels on Telegram or Whatsapp and advocates in schools through the Parents’ Associations and lobbying in institutions. The president of ALM, Marina Fernández, who is a psychologist and university professor, celebrated the Generalitat’s ban on mobile phones in Primary schools last January but considers the new legislation “insufficient”, as it allows Secondary school teachers the freedom to require the use of mobile phones for educational purposes in the classroom.
“That exacerbates the differences between schools. We believe that institutions should make a more decisive commitment. Mobile phones can be replaced by other devices, such as Chromebooks, which are already used by all Secondary Education students in Catalonia, because otherwise you are not opening a door.” Fernandez, who is also a lecturer at the Universitat Abat Oliva (UA0), also believes that “social networks should be regulated as a public health issue.”
We believe that there should be a stronger commitment from the institutions. The mobile phone can be replaced by other devices, such as the Chromebooks that secondary school students already have in Catalonia”
When the association asked the families who joined the local groups, 62% of the parents answered that they wanted to delay the delivery of the smartphone until at least 16 years old, but more than 80% acknowledged that they had already given it at 12.
Now that the school year is starting, everything indicates that the issue of children having mobile phones will vary depending on the neighborhood. It will also vary by socio-economic strata and population centers. Among those particularly aware of the issue, there is a significant incidence of teachers and mental health professionals, perhaps because they have seen the consequences up close.
In some high schools, anti-mobile families have already organized for months to take a count and provide support, even though their children attended different primary schools. Of the approximately 120 students who will start first year of ESO at Súnion, a subsidized high school in the Sarrià Sant Gervasi district, they know that at least 33 will do so without a mobile phone. The students come from about 15 schools, including public ones like Orlandai, Costa i Llobera, and Tàber, subsidized ones like Sadako, Decroly, or Betania Patmos, and private ones like the Waldorf center El Til·ler in Cerdanyola del Vallès.
Marta Nomen, a social educator by profession, is the mother of Claudia, who will start at Súnion this year and has not encountered much domestic opposition. “She does ask us how she will keep in touch with her friends, and we tell her that it will be the same as now, using our cell phones or the landline. Out of the 26 children who finished the school year at Orlandai, only three had a cell phone.”
Contrasts
Now that the school year is starting, everything indicates that children having mobile phones will vary from one neighborhood to another. It will also vary by socioeconomic status and population centers
Like almost all high school students, Claudia will move around the streets more independently, but she’s not too worried about it. “Knowing that if we agree to meet at a place at a certain time, she has to be there is part of the learning process. We live in a neighborhood with many watchful eyes, and it’s very familiar. If something happens, she can stop someone and call us,” Nomen believes.
Also, in some public schools there has been that previous coordination. At the IES Jaume Balmes, in Dreta del Eixample, they estimate that at least 40 out of the 90 boys and girls who will start First Year of Secondary School will not have a smartphone, after a significant anti-mobile agitation occurred in the schools in the area that converge at the Balmes last school year.
I will always be happy that the [anti-mobile parents movement] arose when my oldest child was in sixth grade. Before, you fought alone and now the issue is on the public agenda”
Marta Fabà, who works in the area of Social Rights at the Barcelona City Council and is the mother of Bernat, a 12-year-old boy, took charge of activating the movement at La Concepció, where students who use phones are the minority. “I was already convinced, but when I saw the first groups emerging in Poblenou, I saw the light. I will always be glad that this arose when my oldest son was in sixth grade. Before, you fought it alone, and now the issue has moved to the public agenda.”
On the other hand, Carmen González, a shop assistant in Santa Coloma de Gramanet and Marc’s mother, says she feels “very alone” in her battle against the smartphone. She also follows all the notifications in the Whatsapp group of her local ALM group, but she is not aware of a similar movement in the center where her son will attend, Puig Castellar. Marc plays chess tournaments in different areas of Barcelona and the metropolitan area, and González says she has noticed this difference. “You just have to go to Sants, there the kids don’t have phones from such a young age.” In her own environment, she has had to battle against family members who insisted on the child, especially last Christmas: “now that you are going to high school, they will buy you a phone, right?”.
Marta Fabà with her 12-year-old son Bernat, who will continue without a cell phone despite starting secondary school
According to a report by the Gasol Foundation, children from lower-income households spend up to 70 minutes more per day in front of a screen, and a study by researchers from the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) drew a correlation between the mother’s level of education (which was shown to be more influential than that of the father, if present) and the children’s use of mobile devices. “Depending on the educational level, there is a greater consumption with lower education,” concludes the study, which detects differences of up to 35% in the time spent using mobile phones by minors, depending on whether they are children of mothers with high or low educational levels.
“In Terrassa, in schools where disadvantaged social classes are concentrated, there is a more excessive use of tablets as well. There may be less awareness or it may be seen as a status symbol,” points out Núria González-Rojas, a pharmacist and coordinator of ALM in the Vallès city.”
González-Rojas also mobilized because she had a daughter, Claudia, in sixth grade. At her school, the private school Tecnos, 30% of students will start secondary school without a smartphone, and about 95 families with children between 10 and 16 years old have signed agreements to delay the purchase. However, Núria González-Rojas acknowledges that she also knows of many children in her circle who have Instagram and Tik Tok profiles at the age of 10, despite the rules of these social networks prohibiting it.
I try to convince them [my friends] to play soccer, but sometimes they prefer to sit on the park benches watching videos on their phones”
The main reason that probably best explains these inequalities has to do with necessity. When parents, or in many cases, the mother as the sole head of the household, work long hours away from home, the mobile phone serves as a tool, much cheaper than extracurricular activities and caregivers, to keep children entertained and supervised while they may spend many hours alone.
There is another imbalance, in addition to the socioeconomic one, which is the geographical one. It could almost be said that the smaller the municipality, the earlier the mobile phone becomes part of a child’s life and the more intensive its use is. Graciela Martínez, a primary school teacher, teaches at a school in Torredembarra but enrolls her children in a public school just ten minutes away by car, in Tarragona, and has noticed this difference. “In Torredembarra, if you ask fifth graders, most of them already have a mobile phone.” Her son Joan Pol is also about to start high school without a smartphone, and her intention is to delay the purchase, if possible, until he is 16, and at most, give him a phone without internet or a phone that can make calls, if that makes him feel safer during his commutes.
I am concerned about addiction. It’s like having a bar in the room”
Like Laia, the girl from Alcanar, Arnau Marin is one of the few preadolescents in his town, Santa Bàrbara (Montsià), who will not have a cell phone when starting high school. He is handling it quite well, although sometimes he finds that his friends have made plans and he hasn’t found out. “I try to convince them to play soccer, but sometimes they prefer to sit on the park benches watching videos on their phones,” he says.
His parents, Raimon Granjé and Zaida Lopera, are separated and share custody between the two homes, but even that does not seem like a reason to give a smartphone to Arnau. They both agree he is too young. “I’m concerned about addiction. It’s like putting a bar in his room,” concludes Lopera. “In the village, many nine-year-old children had a cell phone because this inertia is created, and it doesn’t make sense because it’s safer than the city,” she believes.
From the ALM they are aware of these differences, which will become more palpable in the “key course” that is beginning, as their president describes it. “Families do not necessarily have to know to what extent it can generate cognitive damage and that there is a clear and demonstrated correlation between unlimited internet use at that age and issues of anxiety, mental health, depression, eating disorders… We need involvement from the authorities and a total ban in Secondary schools to start balancing the field.”
