The spokesperson for Coalición Canaria in the Congress of Deputies, Cristina Valido, supported this Tuesday the implementation of new resources and public investments to combat digital harassment of minors and also to strengthen the mental health of the adolescent and youth population.
This initiative, to which Coalición Canaria joins, responds to studies that reveal that the misuse of electronic devices harms social well-being and, especially, the mental health of young people. “There is no doubt that new technologies are causing important changes, often with social, labor or economic opportunities,” said Cristina Valido, “but they are also a gateway to bad behaviors that, if not corrected, create new habits that are very harmful to our society.”
The non-legal proposition debated in Congress foresees the reinforcement of the digital protection of the mental health of youth with training programs for families with the objective of expanding their capacities in the knowledge of risks and the management of the use that their sons and daughters make of social networks. Also the detection of vulnerabilities that platforms use to capture the attention of young people to monetize their data.
“Until now we have talked a lot, but we have done little,” Valido said regarding the implementation of effective measures, “and we are not moving forward more due to the confrontation between parties instead of prioritizing general interests.” In this area, the nationalist spokesperson has lamented that the partisan confrontation “prevents decisive political actions” and stressed as “pending” the transposition of the digital services regulation of the European Union.
The proposal on digital health includes the design and implementation of accessible tools in applications on digital detoxification so that users can manage how much time they spend online and what type of content is shown. In this area, the Canarian nationalist spokesperson highlighted the importance of “taking advantage of the opportunities offered by new technologies, but we have not been able to draw a roadmap for the proper use of the new means of connection and interaction of society.”
Among other measures proposed to the Government, the Congress of Deputies assumes the recommendation of not using smartphones until the age of fourteen, in addition to delaying access to the internet and social networks until the age of sixteen. “We cannot continue rejecting the future and remain absent from a digital space that is becoming increasingly important for all those young people who are digital natives,” stressed the deputy of Coalición Canaria to demand the “full development” of European regulations in digital matters to protect the youngest, since “the network has to be our ally to reach youth, not be anchored in an analog world that has already been surpassed by the digital universe in the devices that we all use every day in our lives.”
Other measures planned are the prohibition of harmful designs such as endless content scrolling (infinite scroll), constant real-time notifications or the automatic playback of videos or games. In that line, public administrations will promote good practices such as deactivating notifications, automatic screen locking, chronological recommendation systems or mobile in grayscale to reduce consumption time.
Thus, a regulation will be promoted that guarantees that social network services are ethical by default and renounce dark patterns or manipulation techniques that appeal to the user's unconscious towards decisions that may be harmful to the protection of their personal data.
