EDITORIALE SMARTPHONES IN FAMILIES, SCHOOLS, AND ACROSS GENERATIONS: THEORIES, METHODS AND GOOD PRACTICES

Abstract

The ubiquity of handheld devices, above all smartphones, has transformed the ways in which individuals learn and communicate; build, maintain, negotiate, and interrupt their relationships, in their everyday life and throughout the life-span. The implications of these transformations are still under exploration and far from having reached definitive conclusions. As extensively discussed by Vincent and Haddon in their recent publication, Smartphone Cultures (2018), smartphones present strengths for their versatility, their «mobility and range of capabilities» (p.190), which allow social actors for the support and amplification of their individual and social practices across time and spaces; however, their usage has raised progressive concerns. Smartphones’ dark side has been associated with overuse, distraction, lack of memory and attention, namely a set of behavioural problems which, in some cases, have been labelled with the misleading terms of nomophobia or addiction (Griffiths, 2000; Livingstone & Smith, 2014).