In this article we underline the importance of "knowing how to separate the wheat from the chaff"...

Between the appearance in 1972 of the Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console in history, or the DynaTAC 8000X, the first portable telephone launched on the market in 1983, and the current smartphones, the Metaverse or devices such as the announced Apple Vision Pro, there has been an evolution as logarithmically accelerated and surprising as, for some, worrying...

Our smartphones have practically everything and we are glad we don't have to carry items such as (take a deep breath before reading the following): watch, address book, calendar, calculator, camera, music player, books, TV, computer, flashlight, wallet/purse, photo albums, maps, video game equipment, compass, camcorder and more depending on the brands and models. At the same time that we use this infinity of functions in a single lightweight and easily portable device, we observe that many people seem to be more attentive to the screen of their cell phone or tablet than to the world around them. Thousands of children of almost all ages spend hours watching movies, memes or playing video games among other things while many parents also do the same hooked by algorithms specially designed to make us produce more dopamine. The effects this causes cover many aspects ranging from the quality of family or social interaction to the very functioning of the brain.

Concerns about this reality are neither recent nor necessarily coincidental with the appearance of smartphones: with minor differences, intellectuals such as Giovanni Sartori ("Homo Videns. The Teledirected Society") or Nobel Prize winner José Saramago were already warning about it at the end of the 20th century. Saramago said that "the world is becoming a cavern just like Plato's: everyone looking at images and believing that they are reality".

Books have been published with titles as suggestive as "The factory of digital cretins" (Michel Desmurget) or "Superficial: What is the internet doing to our minds?" (Nicholas Carr) and recently there has been an increase in the number of news and articles dedicated to warning about the dangers of the excessive use of electronic devices and the internet. Psychiatrists and other physicians speak of "internet addiction" and recommend "dopamine fasting"; the American Psychological Association (APA) has proposed criteria for the characterization of "Internet Gaming Disorder" and there are diagnostic tools and instruments for the measurement of addiction such as the PVP ("Problem Video Game Playing Questionnaire") or the "Internet Gaming Disorder Scale" (American Psychiatric Association); Many ophthalmologists recommend everything from controlling the time of exposure to screens or exercises with the eyes to the use of glasses with special filters, and almost all health professionals advocate against sedentary lifestyles, among other warnings and recommendations.

One of the news items perhaps most applauded by those concerned about the effects described in the preceding paragraph was the one referring to the announcement made by the Swedish Minister of Education in May 2023, news that was replicated by countless media although through sensationalist or biased headlines such as "Sweden paralyzes the digitization of classrooms and recovers textbooks" when in fact it was only the suspension of a digitization strategy approved a few months earlier.

Swedish Education Minister Lotta Edholm only suspended the new classroom digitization strategy previously approved by the National Agency for Education, a strategy that involved the massive introduction of digital devices in classrooms across the country, leading to the abandonment of textbooks and handwriting. It was based on expert opinions such as those of the Karolinska Institute (specializing in neurodevelopment) as well as the results of the latest PIRLS report (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) among others showing a decline in the reading ability of school students.

Although not linked to the above, there is also a long struggle between the complaints against electromagnetic radiation or "electropollution" and the defense or denials made by important organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) or the European Commission. The UK government through the "Steward Report" recommends that children should not use cell phones except in emergencies and it is known that some sectors of orthodox Judaism recommend that children use restricted or "kosher" phones so as not to use the text messaging functions. In order not to list more examples, suffice it to close by mentioning that of those Christians who, during the Covid-19 pandemic and the use of the QR code to certify the validity of vaccination certificates, suggested that cell phones could be the materialization of "the mark of the beast" described in cryptic language in the Bible...

Just as a knife can be used for cooking and other good things, it can also be used to do harm (like any tool). Human beings not only decide on the type of use we will give to tools and things but also on the time of use or dosage. Paracelsus, one of the greats in the history of medicine, said that "The dose makes the poison". It can save a life or kill a person depending on the dose: even water, which is an indispensable element for life, in excess, can produce hyponatremia and cause death.

Just as the fundamental difference between medicine and poison is in the dose, the use of screens can be extremely enriching or harmful depending on factors such as the amount of time spent, the type of activity performed, the harmonization of the time of use with the main vital activities, the types of stimulation, the levels of stimulation, the ergonomic adaptability (between the body and the device) and, especially, the themes or content that they show or induce: conflict? violence?, destruction?, horror?, evil?, death?, etc. (anti-values) or goodness?, peace?, beauty?, humanity?, proactivity?, love?, justice?, creativity?, etc. (values).

The reality is that most of the games on screen or better known as "video games", today turn around the first group of themes mentioned above and have as their main objective (whether this is declared or not) to make the player become immersed in the virtual world offered by the game (we speak of "immersiveness") and remain relatively disconnected from the immediate physical reality that surrounds him producing a greater amount of cortisol and adrenaline. To achieve this, it resorts to hyper-stimulation that is achieved by employing, among other methods, the same three ways that activate a baby's attention: light, sound and movement, all in a colorful context of urgency for virtual survival, competitiveness, reaffirmation of the self and of our capabilities.

Video games of the type described above are part of a highly lucrative industry and, as happens in other branches, their promoters or shareholders will prioritize the subsidization of scientific studies that try to highlight the benefits of playing them instead of the negative effects they may cause, especially at the level of the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. The old figure of the rabbit running to reach the carrot that is tied to himself in front of his eyes, has a certain resemblance to what happens with video games that stimulate the speed of reflexes, reaction and physical responses to stimuli. They make the person act quickly but diminish his state of consciousness. Response speeds are prioritized and critical thinking skills and all those that require generative, creative, reflective work are left in last place (if not omitted altogether). Unlike addiction specialists, most users and families still do not consider this type of addiction as something so harmful that it deserves to be avoided as in the case of other drugs.

Few are the video games that encourage generative or creative thinking, promoting values as well as reflective capacities and friendly social interaction instead of competitive or conflictive ones. Few are the video games that take care to control screen time to avoid addictions.

At Lateral, it took us time to shape something that, although simple at first glance, aims to promote creative and generative thinking skills while respecting the principles of healthy learning for the human mind on a screen. At the beginning it was a slow road in the search to rescue the fundamentals. We tried to make the mental exercises work without screens, with the objective of discovering the added value of the screens for that purpose and not only use them for what they are usually used for.

After months of constantly applied research, we found that through screens and digital tools it was not only possible to highlight the attributes of the human skills that we stimulate, but that it was achieved in a better way than with physical resources such as paper and pencil or real two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects that we initially used. This is how the first three Lateral games took shape: Graffo, Kamvas and Enigma, games that stimulate skills very different from the average known games and that, unlike many, do not generate addiction or hormonal changes.

Let's make a difference, either by doing and/or consuming that which makes us more human. Let's talk about it as a family, in our educational and social circles. Let's ask ourselves questions about what screen time does to us: does it generate the normalization of anti-values? does it suppress or numb our reflective, generative and creative abilities? or does it awaken our inspiration? does it nourish us with values that sow peace in our hearts?

Screens are already with us, let's make their existence add value to ours.