Children: The Problem Is Not The Smartphone

Why banning technology is a diagnostic error. 

What we’re seeing in several countries — France, Denmark, Australia — is not educational foresight.
It’s institutional panic.

The pattern is always the same:
we don’t understand a phenomenon → we ban it.

But the problem is not technology.
The problem is the absence of competent adults. 

Banning smartphones does not solve:

• lack of digital education
• emotional illiteracy
• rigid educational systems unable to handle contemporary complexity

It’s a shortcut that cures nothing.

Banning phones is like:

• banning books because some people read poorly
• banning food because eating disorders exist

Technology is not the cause.
It’s an amplifier.

It amplifies:

• what is already there
• emptiness, if emptiness exists
• creativity, when there is a secure emotional base

Children who grow up with emotional security are not “ruined” by screens.
Those who don’t have it may suffer — but removing the screen does not create that security.

Two approaches compared

A) Reactive–defensive approach (the most common)
This is what we see everywhere:

• fear of technology
• demonization of smartphones
• “we ban it to protect”
• nostalgia disguised as caution

It’s a regressive, not educational, approach.
It comes from:

• low digital literacy
• inability to manage complex tools
• adult anxiety about losing control

Those who don’t understand a tool tend to ban it.

B) Integrative–evolutionary approach (the minority)
Here, technology:

• is not passively endured
• is not blindly idolized
• is consciously governed

It’s the approach of those who:

• use AI as a cognitive amplifier
• maintain agency, discernment, intentionality
• don’t delegate thinking — they strengthen it
• enter complexity instead of avoiding it

This is not naive technophilia.
It’s adult maturity.

The real issue

The problem is not the smartphone.
The problem is:

• untrained adults
• lack of solid educational models
• absence of emotional education
• no digital pedagogy

Banning:

• does not teach self-regulation
• does not develop critical thinking
• does not prepare for real life

Education does.
Education in relationship with the tool.
Education starting from the social and emotional intelligence of adults.

Because children don’t need bans.
They need adults who are equal to their time.

Remember: 

Education begins with the emotional intelligence of parents — not with bans. 

Read more here.