A thousand parents from schools related to Opus rebel against the screens: "Kids get distracted and access porn"

Around a thousand parents from schools in Promotion They have mobilized against the screens. They denounce that their children “have been exposed to unnecessary risks in their intellectual and spiritual formation” with the introduction of laptops “replacing” a large part of paper textbooks. In a letter that they have sent to this educational institution linked to the The Work of Godwhat’s wrong with it 32 private and subsidized centers spread throughout spain, these families ask to limit the use of technological devices. “Children are distracted and access pornographic content,” they warn.

They are not against the technologies themselves, but they ask that the digital project be “reviewed”. They demand, among other things, that the use “be limited to certain classes and hours” and that students cannot take the computers home, but rather leave them at school. “If this were not possible,” they add, “parents should have the option of being able to choose the support of their children’s books”, digitally or on paper. “With the current project we are getting the person to be at the service of technology, and not the technology at the service of the person”, they warn in the proposal that they have sent to the members of the Board of directors of Development, to which EL MUNDO has had access.

They thus join the growing movement that questions the supposed school benefits of phones, tablets and computers. Italia banned six months ago smartphone in the classroom, while Sweden You are going to revise your digitization plan after your students have gotten worse in reading. There is a town in Ireland that has promoted a pact so that children under 12 do not use mobile phones, while the school district of Seattle (EEUU) has sued TikTok, Meta y Snapchat for harming the mental health of young people.

In the summer of 2020, in the midst of Covid, the Fomento schools launched their digital project. Its promoters defend that thanks to him the students did not disconnect from school during the pandemic. But the health emergency has subsided and critical families (a minority in a network that has 25,000 students) ask for a «change», since they see more disadvantages than successes in the implementation.

On the one hand there is “the element of distraction.” «It has been verified during these three years that it is very common for children to use the Chromebook even during classes to chat, play, listen to music, or multiple distractions that have nothing to do with the activity planned in the classroom itself, ”they say. Computers have parental control, Lazarus, which prevents viewing, for example, videos of YouTube or inappropriate content. But these parents assure that the children have found a crack to bypass the protection.