Are you overwhelmed when you receive too many WhatsApp notifications? It's nothing compared to what happened to some parents in Oviedo who punished their son by taking away his cell phone. For three days, the mobile remained off, and when turning it on again, they realized that had received no less than 14,000 WhatsApp messages.
The figure scares, but more scary to face to ignore what your son does on social networks. The parents removed his cell phone on Tuesday and were given again on Friday. I participated in 110 groups of friends, in which in just 72 hours he received an average of almost 200 messages per hour.
What if they hadn't punished him?
For those of us who have pre-adolescent children or teenagers, knowing such a story makes all the alarms jump (never better). Do we know how many messages our children receive? Do we know how many people and who they chat with? Do we know what they do on social networks?
If he had not punished him by removing his cell phone, most likely the parents of this 13-year-old boy would not have found out. The teenagers spend the day glued to the mobile and it is practically impossible to control an activity as high as the one this kid had.
But the question is, should parents "spy" on everything our children do on the networks? Information and trust with children is key if we talk about social networks, as it is in all aspects of parenting. It should not be necessary to have to control everything our children do, it would suffice with trusting them To know that they don't get in trouble.
The use of social networks by children is something that parents cannot completely ignore, especially when we talk about teenagers. It is not about spying, but teaching them very important basic questions about the security and operation of the networks before they start using them.
Non-connection punishment
The most precious asset for a teenager today is their mobile. Hence, it has become a frequent punishment on the part of the parents to take their children's cell phone or tablet, leaving them completely disconnected for hours or days.
But as a measure it is not really effective, because these random prohibitions do not help them to control themselves. If time in front of the screen has become a problem, it is preferable to establish clear rules of use, such as restrict schedules (a couple of hours in the afternoon) or limit their use at weekends, when they have more free time to connect with their friends.
Minors in the networks
Spanish legislation establishes fourteen years as a minimum age to be part of social networks, but since there is no sure way to prove it, there are many children under that age with profiles in the most common social networks and access to WhatsApp.
On the other hand, there is the question about from what age it would be advisable for children to have mobile, since WhatsApp is an application that they will surely use to communicate with other children as soon as they have a mobile. Half of eleven-year-old Spanish children have a smartphone, age that coincides with the beginning of high school.
More and more isolated teenagers
The ovetense child participated in more than one hundred WhatsApp groups, 110 to be exact. It is practically impossible for a 13-year-old child (or anyone) to be friends with all the people who participated in them.
Although a priori it may seem that they are very socially active children, the truth is that digital hyper-socialization is actually isolating them more and more. It is common to see groups of teenagers gathered, each one put in their mobile without hardly talking to who they have next to them.
