ABSTRACT
Emerging practices and changing communication patterns following the increased use of mobile communications have resulted in vast volumes of data being pushed out to recipients, many of whom are not able to cope with the ‘noise’ from all this social media. For adolescents, this experience impacts on school performance, sociability, and cognitive development. The phenomenon of nomophobia, the need to be virtually stuck to our mobiles, has to coexist with the increasing feeling of being ‘infoxicated’ (following Toffler). This describes the presence of too much information that undoubtedly exceeds our processing capacity as well as presenting difficulties in focusing and making the most of time and resources. Our analysis draws on the qualitative and quantitative research data from Spain and other European countries that comprised the Net Children Go Mobile project. In many ways the children’s use of smartphones is still developing but this overloading of broadcast data, of group text, WhatsApp messages, divergent inputs, and distraction can be problematic as was evident when listening to them talk about their relationship with mobile devices and the role that the internet plays in their lives. This chapter examines the awareness and ethics of smartphone use among children and adolescents, related to their own inappropriate use and the difficulties related to coping with the overload of information.
