They are the creators of new technologies, but they prevent their children from approaching screens.

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft did not allow his children to have a cell phone until they were 14 years old; Steve Jobs, Apple creator, has limited the time spent by his children with new technologies and even banned them from using the iPad.

Although they are the brain behind technology that traps millions of human beings around the world, these creatives – and many more in Silicon Valley (the nerve center of the digital economy) – They do not allow their children to spend a lot of time next to the screens.

In fact in Palo Alto- in the heart of Silicon Valley– there is a private school called Waldorf of the peninsula, where kids go from leaders of big tech companies such as Apple and Google.

Unlike most schools in the world, where technology enters the clbadroom, children do not use a screen until they reach high school, says Spanish portal. The country.

The children do digital pencil operations, a colored chalk (chalk) is used to write on the chalkboard and all the messages that cover the walls of the clbadroom are written by hand. Students make their own textbooks.

"We do not believe in the black box, the idea of ​​putting something in a machine and that a result comes out without understanding what's going on inside …. Creativity is something essentially human. If you place a screen on a young child, you limit his motor skills, its tendency to grow, its ability to focus, "said Pierre Laurent, computer engineer with three children, who worked for Microsoft and who is now chairman of Waldorf.

Laurent represents the thought that is starting to spread among the elites of Silicon Valley. The people behind the major technology companies want their children to move away from these innovations, believing that the benefits of using screens in preschool education are limited and have risk of creating an addiction.

"On the scale between candy and crack, it's closer to crack," says Chris Anderson to The New York Times. Anderson was director of the magazine wired, Dedicated to digital culture.

Laurent explained that the current goal of apps is to allow the user to spend more time on them to collect the most data and spread more ads. But in the case of children, spending a lot of time in front of a screen would limit your ability to think and study.

Difficulty in achieving developmental standards, lack of sleep, risk of depression and even suicide are among the effects that are starting to be observed in children and adolescents because of the use of mobile phone, according to some studies.

Apple introduced a tool called Screen time, which limits the use of the mobile phone and Google has presented a tool with a similar purpose. However, according to some critics, the underlying problem is that their products have an addictive character.

It is the parents who have to solve the problem of the time their children spend near the screens. Silicon Valley's parents not only move their children away from the screens in schools, but in families of tech company executives, nannies are required to sign "cell-free contracts", so that they do not can not use mobile phone near them. small

It is still early to know the results of taking children away from the screen, in a world full of them, But for parents in Silicon Valley, it's worth it.