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Here in Spain, the average age at which children acquire their first mobile phone is eleven. Eleven! I think that was when I got my first football shin pads or 'shinnies' as we rather unimaginatively called them. They were enough to make me feel quite ... grown up, so Lord knows what an electronic portal to the world and all its - often dubious - wonders might do to the frontal cortex of an unsuspecting nipper.
There may be light on the horizon, however. This week the Andalusian Department for Educational Development announced measures to limit the use of mobile phones in schools owing to 'a clamour of demands from society at large.' Presumably some of the parents who once bought little Ana and José a phone for their eleventh birthdays were among the ones demanding change, having since witnessed the teenage consequences of their premature generosity.
Even better, there's an organisation in Malaga called the Platform For An Adolescence Free Of Mobile Phones (it sounds better in Spanish) which is lobbying for even tougher measures i.e. for these devices to be prohibited in schools altogether and, moreover, for it to be illegal for anyone under sixteen to even own one.
This, in principle, sounds like a quite marvellous idea although, to tell the truth, I wouldn't like to be one of the teachers trying to enforce the regulations. In the olden days Mr Rodriguez would patrol the bike shed area, flexing his cane while simultaneously seeking out the giveaway orange glow of a crafty ciggie or the odd slurping noises associated with illicit teenage kisses (or maybe that was just me).
Anyway, currently, it would be a question of searching for faces aglow with the light of phone screens offering the lucky onlookers intimate details concerning which shade of lipstick Kim Kardashian is wearing these days and why. Heaven knows, you can see why these things become addictive.
Don't get me wrong, mobile phones and the connectivity they offer is nothing short of a miracle; it's just that - like a gang of teenagers at their first house party hammering away at the Cinzano until it spews forth from their ears - we don't yet know how to use them to our advantage properly. Less is more, as somebody somewhere apparently said.
Until we do get the hang of how to enjoy our phones more wisely, I think regulating - or even prohibiting - them in schools can only be a good thing for youngsters.
Come to think of it, I know of quite a few adults who might benefit from similar measures.
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