PARIS – «We have to break the honeymoon in children and digital», they write neurologist Servane Mouton and psychiatrist Amine Benyamina in the report presented yesterday to Emmanuel Macron. Earlier this year the president had urged a group of experts to propose rules to help families regulate the use of mobile phonesTV and tablets in children, “because children should not be abandoned in the jungle and in the same way they should not be left alone on the Internet”.
On an international level the scientific consensus on the effects of screens on learning is still uncertainthe report is however very clear in trying to propose clear rules.
Before the age of 3, all screens, including TV, are banned. Between 3 and 6 years old, TV and tablets allowed, but only in the presence of an adult. Ban on connected games before the age of six. No cell phone before the age of 11. Between 11 and 13 yes, but without an Internet connection. Smartphones allowed, under supervision and with limits, from 13 years old.
In high school, no social media before the age of 15and between 15 and 18 access only to social networks deemed “ethical” such as Mastodon or Bluesky; no to Instagram and TikTok before the age of 18.
In the report, the commission of experts she says she is «shocked by the strategy to capture children’s attentionall cognitive tricks are used to lock them in their screens, control themuse them for financial gain». Experts say they have achieved «a very clear consensus on the negative effects direct and indirect, in particular on sleep, a sedentary lifestyle which favors obesity, and myopia».
The report it is not yet a legal textto France is the first country in the world to regulate the relationship of minors with smartphones and, but the government will certainly take it into account in some way, given the political will shown by President Macron, who wants to make France is the first country in the world to regulate the relationship of minors with smartphones and other digital screens.
It won’t be easy, partly because Framework rules already exist at European level such as the Digital Services Act, and above all because the implementation of the recommendations depends in any case on the parental supervision.
THE Laptops are already banned in schools for personal usebut especially in high school i tablets are now widely used and often replace the school manualswhich was denounced yesterday by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, the first to react to the report.
“The school needs to clean up,” Attal saidinvolved since last summer, first as Minister of Education and then as Prime Minister, in the re-foundation ofeducational institution as an «instrument of reaffirmation of authority». «I’m not a technophobeI don’t think we should ban any use of screens, which can have anpedagogical utility», continued Attal. “But the abuse of screens can be dangerous and therefore we should rethink a certain number of policies that are conducted today in the public service, particularly in education.”
The campaign against screens is part of a broader context of a desired “regaining of control” by parents and the authorities in general, but it is not yet clear how in concrete terms, families will be able to enforce the limits.
In the meantime, however, some rules have been established. Stefano Montefiori
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
