David Pastor Vico proposes that parents who allow their minor children to have cell phones receive a fine.
Spanish essayist David Pastor Vico, the most widely read living philosophy writer in Mexico, told EFE that a “ universal ban is needed, both in schools and in homes, on devices with an Internet connection for children under 16 years of age.”
“We have to do with screens what we have done in other times with other technologies: limit them,” said Vico –as he is known in the academic and informative sphere–, currently Coordinator of Special Events at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
He gave the example of what happened with the appearance of cars, for which at first “you didn’t need a driving licence and everyone had the steering wheel on one side, until they had to be required to learn, take an exam and get a licence to drive them. Now you can’t give a screen with unlimited internet access to a minor under 16 years old ,” he gave as an example.
Author of the essay Era de idiotas (It Was Idiots ), Vico said that “the time has come for this ban; in France, they are studying limiting screens until the age of 15 and in the United Kingdom there is already a bill to ban them until the age of 16 ; the same political will is needed that was needed to ban smoking in bars.”
He added: “Children will be unbearable when their mobile phones are taken away, but they will get over it when their parents are fined 600 euros for letting them use them.”
Children with overexposure to dopamine due to cell phone use
The Seville-born populariser, born in Belgium and based in Mexico, recalled that there are already studies that conclude that the use of screens means “a reduction, per generation, of seven points in the IQ”, as well as reports that speak of the addiction generated by social networks and the biological damage caused by overexposure to dopamine, “which fries your brain”.
In his opinion, banning screens will have the added advantage of bringing children “back out into the street” because “although everyone has a ball at home, they don’t even touch it because they prefer the little screen.”
Vico gave more examples, such as an experiment carried out in Norway where after six months of banning screens in educational and public spaces “cyberbullying was eliminated and academic performance increased”, or another in New York which demonstrated that screens for twenty years “have served no purpose, on the contrary” in terms of improving education.
Spanish essayist David Pastor Vico, the most widely read living philosophy writer in Mexico, told EFE that a “ universal ban is needed, both in schools and in homes, on devices with an Internet connection for children under 16 years of age.”
“We have to do with screens what we have done in other times with other technologies: limit them,” said Vico –as he is known in the academic and informative sphere–, currently Coordinator of Special Events at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
He gave the example of what happened with the appearance of cars, for which at first “you didn’t need a driving licence and everyone had the steering wheel on one side, until they had to be required to learn, take an exam and get a licence to drive them. Now you can’t give a screen with unlimited internet access to a minor under 16 years old ,” he gave as an example.
Author of the essay Era de idiotas (It Was Idiots ), Vico said that “the time has come for this ban; in France, they are studying limiting screens until the age of 15 and in the United Kingdom there is already a bill to ban them until the age of 16 ; the same political will is needed that was needed to ban smoking in bars.”
He added: “Children will be unbearable when their mobile phones are taken away, but they will get over it when their parents are fined 600 euros for letting them use them.”
On happiness, he added that it is not a goal, but a way of understanding life. “Happiness is also an intellectual work; there is no happiness without freedom and freedom implies the possibility of choosing ; that is the moment of happiness, the moment of choosing; and that is not possible without knowledge, it is not possible without books.”
Vico also criticised the saturation of information: “If we are bombarded with 80,000 images a day, there is no capacity for assimilation; images move the emotions and, if there is no time to think, populism triumphs, which is based precisely on emotions.”
