(by Giovanbattista Trebisacce, Professor of General Pedagogy at the University of Catania and AIDR Member) The pandemic has changed the pace and habits of our daily life and our society for a year now. Human relations, work, entertainment, suddenly, from one day to the next, have "moved" to the web. The network has become a virtual agora. Not only adults but also children have been catapulted into this new "virtual square". In fact, since the beginning of the pandemic, children are "forced" in front of a mobile phone, tablet or computer, to carry out ordinary activities, from school to catechism, to birthday or name day celebrations. In recent months they too, like adults, have "endured" a thousand hardships and the only contact with friends and relatives has been virtual, through, perhaps, online gaming on a console or smartphone or through social channels, Tik Tok in a particular way.

I do not want to dwell on the sad event in the news, relating to the death of little Antonella of Palermo: the investigations launched by the ordinary prosecutor and by that of minors will ascertain whether the little girl really let herself be attracted into an absurd challenge on Tik Tok., The Black out challenge. Meanwhile, the Privacy Guarantor has blocked Tik Tok.

For the umpteenth time, in my opinion, we risk falling into a temptation: deluding ourselves that the paragraphs of the law, the rules, the prohibitions, facilitate or, even more, solve the educational challenge. Simple, easy, illusory to say: “too dangerous, let's close everything”. In the meantime, we adults continue to do what we want on the net: yesterday all national team recruiters or coaches, today all virologists, politicians, scientists, pedagogists, gamblers. The rules, the laws serve adults and in particular those adults who produce applications, devices and digital content. Instead, children need parents-educators. Let us therefore begin to set a good example. According to the 2019 Global Digital Report, Italians spend an average of one hour and 46 minutes on social media every day. If the children see us with our heads always bent over the smartphone, we will not be credible when we want to limit their use to them. We need "social free" moments (meal times, after dinner), to be dedicated to the relationship with the children.

The parent must offer trust to the child; education is made up of examples, of trust but also of gentle control. Technology helps us a lot in this: to control and / or limit access to inappropriate sites, the parental control or family filter can be very useful, which allows parents to monitor or block access to certain activities by the child. (pornographic sites, violent images or pages with keywords), adjust the time of use, etc. Many systems, many opportunities, but technology is not enough to keep children completely safe. We need to invest in EDUCATION. The question of children's approach to technology is essentially educational and non-normative. And educational poverty does not always coincide with economic poverty, but it is often more widespread and transversal. Another aspect to consider is that a smartphone, intended as a tool with free access to all the contents of the network and to all social networks, should not be given before the age of 13.

This is not a problem of rules (social networks are already prohibited by their own codes for children under 13), but exclusively educational. Educating in the use of technology means above all EDUCATE. Starting from the fundamentals of parenting also means recognizing one's mistake in the very frequent case in which a small child is allowed to use the smartphone, “because everyone had it” or “to make him feel good”. This means succumbing to a cultural dictatorship that should be overthrown if we really care about the educational issue. Let's not just remember when these tragedies occur. In 2015, Europe asked member states to (re) decide the minimum age to join social media, with the possibility of raising it to 16. The various governments had 3 years to decide, but no one here discussed it and the limit remained the American one, that is 13 years. The digitization process that has invaded politics in recent days must necessarily be accompanied by or, better still, preceded by a real, massive and correct training process.

The Tik Tok case: the rules are not useful for children without educating parents