Archbishop Dom João Santos Cardoso calls for digital education at home

Dom João Santos Cardoso, Archbishop of Natal, emphasizes that digital education must begin within the family unit. He notes that children are increasingly interacting with mobile devices at very young ages, often before they can even speak.

Cardoso compares unsupervised internet access to leaving a child alone on a vast, unknown street. While the digital world offers educational resources like libraries and music, it also contains risks such as violence, pornography, hate speech, cyberbullying, and addictive mechanisms designed to capture attention.

Drawing on the document ‘Amoris Laetitia’ and the teachings of Pope Leo XIV in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’, the message calls for ‘digital sobriety.’ This concept does not advocate for the total rejection of technology, but rather for supervised use to protect minors, prevent dependency, and help children develop critical thinking skills.