Representatives from the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) issued a warning Tuesday about school e-sports programs, which can increase addiction and the negative effects linked to screen time.
“If we add — again — screen time to school, it only accumulates this time and potentially reinforces the effects [néfastes] on health,” said Fanny Lemétayer, scientific advisor at the INSPQ. She was participating in the hearings of the special commission on the impacts of screens, which is holding its work at the National Assembly.
Over the years, Quebec high schools have launched e-sports programs. By the start of the 2025 school year, Cardinal-Roy School in Quebec City is set to become the fourth high school to launch such a program. First- and second-year high school students will have three hours a day to devote to this concentration.
As a reminder, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology recommends limiting screen time to two hours for children aged 5 to 17. Quebec is proposing the same ceiling up to the age of 12 for leisure time on a screen, but does not put forward a specific limit for 13 to 17 year-olds.
“All the screen time we add to school is time that is added to leisure screen time, which is already very high and beyond the recommendations,” Mr.me Lemétayer. “It is certain that adding some e-sport at school, we don’t know if it influences [les jeunes] to play even more at home. So yes, there are caveats. We don’t know the effects of these programs, actually,” she told the Duty after its passage in committee.
Schools should set an example?
For Éric Litvak, associate vice-president of scientific affairs at the INSPQ, schools should be places that promote healthy lifestyle habits. “In environments where we have some ability to control what is offered and what is promoted, it may be an ideal place to promote things that have the maximum positive impact, and not [des activités] which risk adding to the cumulative time spent in front of screens,” he said.
When asked about e-sports programs by Liberal MP Enrico Ciccone, INSPQ experts also raised red flags about the “persuasion mechanisms” of online games, which increase the phenomenon of addiction. They also stated that the efforts made by schools to encourage physical activity outside of these programs could not counterbalance their harmful effects. [Les élèves] still sit for long hours playing. So it doesn’t always compensate,” said Mr.me Lemétayer.
She also pointed out that “digital technology leads to a lower understanding of text” than reading a paper document. The same goes for digital note-taking, which provides “no benefit to learning”, unlike its handwritten version. “So, even if the uses [des écrans] are educational, they do not necessarily have added value on learning and they potentially have effects [néfastes] on health,” she stressed.
The President and CEO of the INSPQ, Pierre-Gerlier Forest, also indicated his interest in creating a digital majority — a minimum age to access certain social networks, for example. This is an “isolated tool, but not sufficient,” he qualified. “But it is not necessarily a bad signal to send to society, users and content producers.”
The hearings of the Special Commission on the impacts of screens and social networks on the health and development of young people continue until September 26.