A few days ago, our relatives paid us a visit - Mom and Dad with a six-year-old boy. The boy was at the centre of our attention almost all of the time. The moment we touched a ’boring’ topic, the six-year-old used the opportunity to grab one of the mobile phones that were at his fingertips (not without asking, of course). In less than a minute, he managed to find the ’games’ folder (although he had not previously used this phone), and soon afterwards, he managed to spend several hundreds of dinars from the phone owner's account. How could have this been prevented? Many would say that the use of mobile phones should simply be limited to six-year-olds...

Do you recognize the hypocrisy of the time in which we live in the title of this text? We have made available something very challenging, dynamic, colourful, exciting, interesting to the children of today... Something which ’eats’ their attention, which can trigger an addiction or phobia in them. Something that draws the attention also to us adults, let alone to children whose abilities for the self-regulation of their own behaviour is far more modest compared to abilities of (most of) us adults, so we are now searching for ways of limiting it to them! Perhaps, to start with, we could ask ourselves how to restrict the use of digital devices to ourselves?! A few months ago, a video footage of seven-year-olds’ protest in Hamburg who told their parents play with us, not with your cell phones was published on the DW News website.

Let us review several aspects of the limitation.

What should we limit? Access to digital devices, time spent in front of screens, access to inappropriate contents, contacts with malicious people...

By limiting access to digital devices, we risk to endanger one of the basic rights of the child (which equally applies to the digital environment), the right to access to information and materials from various sources that are focused on child’s development (Article 17 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child). The right to quality education (Article 28) implies acquiring the digital literacy skills, which requires the use of digital devices.

The obligation of adults, therefore, should be to regulate the media space so as to effectively protect children from harmful contents and contacts. Nevertheless, our reality is such that by enabling children to access even the contents that are appropriate to their age (e.g. video games with PEGI 3 designation), we expose them to commercial contents and the risk of spending money.

Why should we impose limitations? Because we are aware (though, are we!?) that only meaningful and moderate use of digital devices, with balancing the online and offline time, can contribute to child’s wellbeing, health and development of the overall personality, as well as because the creators of this powerful tool do not think of children, as the most vulnerable, yet ever-more numerous group of users.

While I am writing this text, the word ’limit’ gives me a feeling of discomfort in my stomach. My beliefs, both personal and professional, tell me that strict control, restriction and prohibition have many bad, and a few good points.

Instead of asking ourselves how to limit the use of digital devices to children, I propose that we all seriously consider the following issues: How can we not limit the use of digital devices to children but rather make it meaningful? How can we enable children to use digital devices in a constructive and safe manner? How can we prevent creators of digital contents from foisting inadequate contents upon children?