“We need to do prevention and make parents responsible,” pleads a psychologist

Emmanuel Macron, during his press conference on Tuesday evening, announced that he wanted to “take back control of our screens”.

During his press conference on Tuesday January 16, the president said he hoped that it would be determined “the proper use of screens for our children, at home and in class, because the future of our societies and our democracies is at stake”. Without specifying how, he nevertheless suggests that there will perhaps be bans and restrictions but that he is awaiting a scientific consensus on the subject. “We need to do prevention and make parents responsible.”argues on franceinfo Sabine Duflo, clinical psychologist and member of Arcom.

franceinfo: Is there not already a scientific consensus on the subject?

Sabine Duflo : There is still a consensus to say that before two years of age, there is no benefit and even negative effects in putting a child, a small child, in front of a screen. After two years, there can be some small benefits over extremely short periods of time, with very selected content and a parent next to the child, which, in real life, almost never happens since most parents use screens to occupy children and free up time. Afterwards, we also know that excessive time has effects, there is a huge amount of literature on this, on essential skills such as language, attention and an area as important as sleep.

Emmanuel Macron also mentions risks for democracy.

The problem is that it is an object which induces addictive behavior, that is to say a very great difficulty in regulating oneself, in stopping oneself from going there. And our democracies are based on the fact that the subject is capable of choosing for himself, of thinking for himself. From the moment his mind is captured 24 hours a day by recreational screens, his abilities to self-determine, to think for himself, are effectively eroded. And it’s extremely serious when it comes to children because the whole goal of raising a child is to be able to think for oneself, to self-regulate and not to not being captured by what attracts us the most, what moves us, being able to reflect. And the screens used by children are essentially entertainment screens.

Do you regularly see this problem in consultation?

This is the number one reason for conflict in families today. This can have very concrete effects: children who are less and less eager to practice an activity outside of school, who no longer go out to meet friends, who no longer read or read less and who, obviously, perform less well. in their school work. So the impact is considerable and parents can’t say stop because it’s very addictive and because parents themselves have this habit of locking themselves in more and more on screens.

How can the State go further, like when Emmanuel Macron speaks of restrictions?

I think that, from the moment an object generates addictions, addictive behaviors (which is the case with screens), there is both a prevention aspect and there is necessarily, as far as minors are concerned, a legislative aspect, a regulation. So currently in colleges, we have managed to ban it during the day. But within families, children have increasingly longer screen time, often even at night, obviously without the parents’ knowledge, which then has an impact on learning. So, parents will have to be made responsible.