Pedro Sanchez From Dubai, he has promised five measures against digital platforms: criminal liability for managers, prohibition of access to minors under 16 years of age and criminalizing the manipulation of algorithms.
The package sounds grandiose, but the most relevant thing is not in the technical details or its parliamentary viability.
The panoramic. We are seeing the beginning of the “smoking” of the smartphone even at an institutional level. In society it started a few years ago. Social media is the stated goal, but the gateway is the device.
The pattern. We have seen it before. There was a time when smoking on a plane was normal, getting tipsy during pregnancy did not cause social alarm, it was acceptable to travel with four children crammed behind in the car, and sugar was simply an innocent pleasure. In all cases, the change followed a similar sequence:
- First, scientific studies that point to a course of action.
- Then, a critical mass of citizens begins to “feel” that there is a problem.
- Next, governments move toward regulation.
- Finally, what was normal becomes unacceptable.
Where are we. Right now, in phase 2 and approaching phase 3. The evidence on The impact of mobile phones on the attention and performance of minors they are growing. But that doesn’t matter much anymore.
What matters is that a growing majority of parents, educators and citizens have come to the conviction that something is wrong. When you ask if children spend too much time on their cell phones, almost no one says no.
Between the lines. Politicians do not usually lead these changes in consciousness, they simply detect and amplify them. Sánchez has not invented concern about social networks, he has only smelled that the wind is blowing in that direction and has placed himself in front of the current.
This is what governments do when they sense that a cause has more support than detractors: fertile ground to announce something that will generate sympathy.
The contrast. Just a decade ago, criticizing social networks placed you in the camp of technophobes, boomers disconnected, those who did not understand progress. Today that position has been almost completely reversed.
Defending that a 12-year-old child have unlimited access to TikTok is beginning to be the cause of almost unanimous bad looks. The one that was before mainstream Now he has to explain himself. See a child today (or not so child) spend dinner making scroll to chain videos provokes a different reaction than doing it seven years ago. In another seven years it will surely be even more different.
Yes, but. The analogy with tobacco has its limits because the cell phone is not only a vector of addiction, it is also a tool for communication, learning and socialization.
Prohibiting access to minors under 16 years of age sounds reasonable until you think about how a 15-year-old teenager today coordinates his or her class work or meets up with friends. The upcoming regulation will have to be somewhat more surgical than that of tobacco, which was simply prohibited in closed spaces.
The big question. Or big questions. Will we remember this time as we now remember the photos of doctors smoking in hospitals? Will our children stare in disbelief at images of entire families staring at screens in a restaurant, each absorbed in their own feed?
If the pattern repeats itself, probably yes. Whether the measures that Sánchez has just anticipated succeed or not is the least important thing. What matters is that you have correctly read where the conversation is moving.
Featured image | Xataka
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings