A mother's experience raising a child alongside technology

Since the arrival of computers, game consoles, cell phones, among other things, a change began in the lives of all of us who were already adults when they arrived, because we had to adapt and learn how to use them.

Now, children who were born and have interacted with everything related to technology since childhood are a different generation, influenced by digital technology, not only because these devices have been normal or present in their daily lives, but also because of the interaction their parents have allowed them to have with different devices.

I think it is very good for young people to learn how to use these devices from an appropriate age, and by that I mean using them correctly, which includes taking care of the devices and themselves. It is true that today the internet is not a luxury, it is a necessity, especially in places where email or other means of communication are used to send and receive information, but there are places where there is hardly any electricity or telephone signal and things are still done the old-fashioned way.

I remember that my son had a Dell mini laptop with an Atom processor when he was about 7 or 8 years old. It was a Christmas present, and I realized how important it was to have control, not only over the amount of time he spent on it, but also over what he could see, so I installed parental controls. Then, when he was 11, I gave him a smartphone. the main reason being to be able to communicate with him more easily when I was working.

I think that when we talk about digital health, we are talking about several things: first, the number of hours we can spend in front of different digital devices, and also what we consume on them, that is, how we use them, which can vary, for example, for work, for recreational purposes, or both. The key is to use them correctly because they can become addictive or interfere with other activities, becoming a vice, which happens more regularly with phones. In addition, it has been proven that the lights from these devices affect vision and disrupt sleep, among other things.

As a mother, given my son's attitude towards that first gift of a laptop, noticing that he wanted to be there all day, I insisted, as I mentioned, on parental control, as well as rules, obviously explaining to my son the reasons for this because the intention was and is his well-being.

On the other hand, although I noticed that my son was jumping from one device to another, I managed to prevent him from spending hours on a single device, especially since he was diagnosed at the age of two with his mother's astigmatism, so even though he wore glasses, I always made sure he took care of his eyesight.

Currently, my son is 22 years old and, as he is not wearing glasses, I advise him to use the eye care feature that all devices have nowadays when using his phone and to use low brightness when using his computer, as well as to take a break after a certain number of hours.

But in my particular case, I have learned that part of digital health is not believing everything I see on social media or in the news, as there is an infinite amount of fake news that only causes anxiety. It is not healthy to spend so much time on social media. I should use my PC to be productive. It can be used for other purposes, but that is its main function. I have learned that what you are passionate about should be productive, and with so much diversity and the emergence of new technologies and applications, this is now possible.

But the vital thing is to observe whether we or those around us have any kind of addiction to these devices, which is not healthy at all. I have seen videos of teenagers on planes throwing inexplicable tantrums because they cannot bear to be without their cell phones for a while.

In short, technology is useful and necessary, but like everything else, it has its limits, and we need to remember that there are other activities such as walking, exercising outdoors, going out to eat, going to the movies, etc. Therefore, digital health means making rational and necessary use of the different devices we have at home. That concludes my participation in A tip... from you || Digi-Prompts 047