Mobile, networks and cultural change

The ban on apps for those under 16 puts the dangers of social media on a level similar to that of tobacco or alcohol. This is the most important effect of Pedro Sánchez's announcement: it represents a cultural shift. And, as in Australia and France, it was about time.

Any parent has seen that screens can seriously harm their child's self-esteem, sleep, concentration, reading, values ​​education, good taste, and socialization. And that if they wanted to keep an eye on things, they had to wage an unequal daily battle. Now, the battle will continue, because there's nothing more tempting than the forbidden, but when the state regulates, society has a clear point of reference.

But even so, the relationship with such a fundamental tool in daily life, now and in the future, will only be healthy if education outweighs prohibition. We wouldn't forbid children from going out on the street for fear of being mugged, nor would we forbid young people from going to school because their classmates might be bullies. And the street, the school, and the mobile phone are equivalent concepts if we understand that screens and networks will be where young people spend the rest of their lives, whether to communicate, work, or entertain themselves, and they must learn to manage them without harming themselves.

It remains to be seen, and this is no small matter, how this will be done. And although history may not remember it, Sánchez is also making this decision because the confrontation with those he has dubbed "techno-oligarchs" gains him ground in local and global conversations, just as with the regularization of immigrants: or is it a coincidence that he announced it just when the world is comparing Trump's ICE to the Gestapo?