Mobile phones: adolescence is also digital
These days the book has seen the light Not without my cell phone. A title that comes from from a published article In this very newspaper, in one of the many moments of adult moral panic surrounding "screens." Now, the book also comes out at another of these times: the Ministry of Education has just announced that next year, cell phones and smartwatches will have to be completely eliminated—and, therefore, banned—at all stages of compulsory education; Congress is debating the law on the digital protection of minors; and, everywhere, they are demonstrating in abundance and everywhere. And, speaking only of adolescent boys and girls, once again, I'm not sure that the adults involved are looking, listening, discovering arguments, or considering how to be useful in their digital lives. So I once again invite a positive dialogue on a small part of the issue: the symbiosis between adolescence and the digital universe.
It should be superfluous, but I remind you: the analog world doesn't exist, and we can't go back. Which doesn't deny that we are active subjects who negotiate what part of our lives they don't want mediated by a screen, how to use apps in unforeseen ways, or even abandon ourselves at times to the comfort of an algorithm. The second fact to remember is that, long before becoming a generalized adult tool, the internet became adolescent. In its early days, it even became a vital refuge free of adults. Finally, it is also a fact that the digital universe became (and currently is) a significant vital context, in which it is possible to practice the adolescent condition intensely, and we can affirm that today one cannot be an adolescent without being in communion with that universe (the device that connects may be secondary).
In my opinion, the question we must consider is how the digital universe and the adolescent universe fit together, to consider the adolescent dimensions that create a profound digital symbiosis and that force us to assess how we should continue educating our adolescents. Reflect on what it means for them to be digital, to live together online, to learn in virtual reality. I'll briefly outline just three aspects.
1. "But who am I? Who is like me?" The game of clearing one's head has long since taken on a digital dimension. Part of identities was, is, inevitably digital.
Every adolescent needs mirrors. They need reflections of themselves to discover part of what they are and the changes that occur. They can try to be, edit themselves, change. Mirrors speak. They can know what they are by knowing what others say... And the adult action should be to help them see and know themselves; manage external influence by giving variable weight, valuing the wonder of acceptance and the disasters of rejection. They live and express moods, desires, ways of being, expectations for others... Adolescent lives under construction that they can now show in provisional models, which should not be ignored by adults.
2. "If they don't see me, I don't exist. Adults can't understand me because they don't live what I live." It's not so much about looking at each other as being looked at. The digital, networked dimension provides them with three components: an existing, active faith; live experience with the uniqueness or strangeness of their way of being (trying to be recognized, normalized); and discovering that they are not alone in their adolescence. The adult action should be to look, observe, listen, and show that we are interested in their lives, not just focusing on detecting problems. Lost in their adolescent condition, they also need professionals other than parents who want to talk about them (also via WhatsApp). And we can't just keep saying that friends in the virtual dimension aren't friends.
3. At the most "opportune" moments they ask: "And why do I have to go to school?" EITHER: "Why learn this if the answer is in ChatGPT?" Now, the challenge is wanting to access knowledge. Our challenge, and that of our adolescents, is threefold: being able to access it and knowing how to access it, wanting to access it, and knowing how to manage the answers and the results. They may know much more than before, but it doesn't automatically mean they have the desire to know, the drive to discover how to access knowledge. What needs to be known, how to learn it, and the reasons (adolescents and adults) for learning are constantly changing.
They are also adolescents because they can be digital. We just want to see a universe of problems. They find it gives them a lot. Sometimes they find that, in return, it takes too much away and that the adults around them don't understand anything.
