A 12-year-old girl from Guadalajara has been receiving residential treatment in Mexico City after her cellphone use became so extreme that taking the device away triggered intense anxiety and distress.
The girl, identified only as “Ana” to protect her identity, began using a cellphone around age eight. What started as a device for playing games gradually became the center of her daily life.
According to her account, she would wake up, eat breakfast and then spend much of the day on the phone. At its worst, she could spend up to 12 hours a day using the device.
Her activities expanded beyond video games to TikTok and YouTube. Family interaction became increasingly difficult, and she showed little interest in participating in household activities.
When her parents tried to take the phone away, however, the reaction became more serious.
Ana described feeling extremely desperate and anxious when separated from the device.
Eventually, her family sought professional help and she was taken to the Centro de Formación y Restauración Casa de María in Mexico City. She has been there for about a month and a half.
A growing problem
Her case is part of a broader concern surrounding children’s increasingly intensive use of smartphones and the internet.
According to Mexico’s 2025 national survey on the availability and use of information technologies, 80.3% of children and adolescents ages 6 to 17 use a cellphone independently, while 85.4% of children ages 6 to 14 are internet users.
Internet use among Mexican children has risen dramatically over the past decade. Among children ages 6 to 11, internet use increased from 52.9% in 2016 to 81.1% in 2025. Among those ages 12 to 17, it increased from 85.5% to 94.9%.
The treatment
At Casa de María, Ana is learning to manage the anxiety that comes with being away from her phone.
She says breathing exercises and thinking about the consequences of returning to excessive cellphone use help her regain control.
Her goal is not to eliminate the phone completely, but to return home with strict limits—potentially using it for only about two hours a day.
The center also limits cellphone access for residents. Patients have a designated period during which they can use their phones; Afterward, the devices are put away.
The facility offers individual and group psychotherapy, educational activities and social-reintegration programs.
According to the center, of the 564 young people it has treated, between 50% and 65% have experienced problems related to excessive cellphone use.
When the phone becomes an escape
Experts interviewed by Milenio say the issue is more complicated than simply counting hours spent looking at a screen.
For some young people, the cellphone can become an escape from family conflicts, loneliness, anxiety or other emotional difficulties.
Luis Arturo González Lozano, general director of Jalisco’s Council for Mental Health and Addictions, said excessive technology exposure can be associated with problems involving sleep, school attention, physical activity, social isolation and other aspects of development.
He has emphasized that technology itself is not necessarily the enemy. The concern is what happens when use becomes compulsive and a person loses control over how much time they spend on it.
The solution isn’t simply taking the phone away
Experts say parents should not rely solely on confiscating a child’s phone.
Instead, children need alternatives: family interaction, physical activity, social relationships, hobbies and time away from screens.
For Ana, that change is underway already.
Her days at the treatment center now follow a structured routine of activities, meetings, meals and rest—very different from the 12-hour stretches she once spent on her phone.
She acknowledges that the transition has not been easy. There are good days and bad days, and she still sometimes feels the urge to use the device.
But she now says she understands why her parents sought help.
And when she eventually returns home, she wants her relationship with the phone to be different.
