Hello community of Reflections this my first posting here, and I have an important topic for you today.
We often talk about progress as if it were a straight line upwards, but if we look at how we are managing the growth of new generations, it seems we are actually moving backward from the truth.
There is a modern trend, almost a social pressure even if it doesn't seem like it, that pushes us to integrate children into the digital ecosystem long before they have the psychological tools to survive in it. It's not about being "anti-technology," but about understanding human development.
False Early Adaptation
Many parents fall into the trap of believing that giving a child a device is a way to prepare them for the future. We tell ourselves that "the world is digital" and that they must learn to navigate it as soon as possible.
However, we are confusing technical skill with emotional maturity.
Learning to swipe a finger across a screen doesn't require intelligence; it requires instinct. What does require intelligence, and a great deal of patience, is learning to manage attention, boredom, and one's own identity.
When we introduce social media and massive digital consumption during childhood or early adolescence, we are intervening precisely where their personality is being formed.
A teenager is still discovering who they are, trying out different versions of themselves in the real world. If, during this critical process, we add the weight of the opinions of thousands of strangers and the harmfulness of the algorithm, their personality is no longer formed from the inside out, but from the outside in. It becomes a response to external stimuli, rather than an expression of their internal essence.
The Danger of the Influence Environment
I studied psychology and I have realized that there is a huge difference between the influence environment of a few decades ago and that of today. Before, our influences were limited: family, neighborhood friends, perhaps some books or television shows. It was a controllable, human environment, one we could interact with physically. Today, the influence environment is infinite and often hostile.
Social media is not a neutral space; it is an environment designed by behavioral psychologists to maximize time spent on the platform. For a young brain, whose frontal lobe — responsible for judgment and impulse control — is still under construction, this environment is simply too dangerous.
This affects things tremendously. We are asking a child to resist manipulation mechanisms that even we adults struggle to manage. By allowing them premature access, we are exposing them to aesthetic, social, and moral pressure for which they have no defenses.
Maturity is nothing more than the ability to maintain one's own axis against the noise of the world. And truly, the noise today is deafening.
Personality as a Shield
My stance has always been clear: there is no magic age, but there is a necessary mental state. Adolescence and also Childhood are, by definition, a stage of vulnerability. It is the time when the opinion of others weighs more than anything else. If we inject our entire lives into a digital world during this stage, the need for approval becomes an addiction.
The ideal, even if it seems radical in our current culture, would be to allow the individual to develop a solid foundation of real interests, skills, and physical human connections before entering the digital age. When a person already knows who they are, what they are passionate about, and what their values are, technology becomes what it always should have been: a tool.
The Atrophy of Deep Thought
By surrendering our children's distraction to screens, we are unintentionally atrophying their capacity for deep thought and contemplation.
Healthy development requires spaces of silence, moments of "nothing" where the mind is forced to look inward. Modern technology has eliminated boredom, and with it, it has eliminated the main engine of childhood creativity.
If a child always has a stimulus at hand, they will never learn to generate their own stimulus. We are creating a generation that depends on an external source to feel "stimulated" or "alive." It is a form of dependency that makes us much easier to control and manipulate in the long run. A society that cannot be alone with its thoughts is a society that has lost its inner freedom.
The Role of the Adult
Our responsibility as adults is not to be facilitators of the latest technological trend, but to be protectors of the sacred time and space of childhood. This means making unpopular decisions. It means being the parent who says "not yet," while the rest of the environment gives in to pressure. It is an act of love that is often mistaken for authoritarianism, but it is, in reality, an act of profound protection.
We want our children to be "modern," but we should be more concerned with them being "fully human." A fully human person can learn to use a computer in a week, but a "modern" person who has lost their capacity for empathy or concentration can take years, or an entire lifetime, to recover what the screen snatched away or toxically transformed within them.
Towards a Humanist Upbringing
The change I propose is to put the human first again. To prioritize free play, contact with nature, reading physical books, and uninterrupted conversation. We must demystify the idea that technology is indispensable for early success. True success in life comes from resilience, the ability to solve complex problems, and the quality of our emotional bonds. None of that is found in a news feed.
We must also be in pursuit of our children's real interests, the passions they feel in each moment, where they find happiness, what makes them smile and be at peace.
As a species, we are at a turning point. We can continue to let the market dictate how our children should grow up, or we can reclaim our sovereignty over parenting. It's a decision we make every time we choose between handing over a phone or giving our time and attention.
The future belongs not to those who have the latest device, but to those who retain the ability to think for themselves and to feel deeply. Let's protect that ability while we still have time. It's not a step backward; it's a preservation of what truly matters.
Final Reflection
This post aims to generate debate and see different points of view. It focuses on the protection of identity and the sovereignty of the human being.
My Note:
I was deeply inspired to write this piece after reading "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt. His insights into how we have moved from a "play-based childhood" to a "phone-based childhood" are a wake-up call for all of us. It reminded me that our role as parents isn't just to provide, but to protect the formative space where a soul becomes itself, away from the noise of a world that is always trying to sell them something.
