I recently spoke out in The duty on the importance of taking into account the evolving capacities of the child in our discourse on their relationship to screens. Another element that has marked me since the beginning of my doctoral journey – and which echoes this question of refinement and nuances to bring into the debate – is that of knowing who is responsible for the questions that the subject raises.
We often seek, and at all costs, to find a major culprit or at least a single person responsible to resolve these problems. So, who should bear the burden of protecting future generations in the digital world? Isn’t it up to parents rather than the government to monitor what their children are doing on their screens at home? Is it up to industry and pushers “virtuals” where all the fault lies? Isn’t it just up to children to learn to self-regulate and develop their digital skills? What about educators, daycares, teachers, schools, public health institutions and child welfare agencies?
This list reveals, in my opinion, a false dilemma whereby we must “choose” one solution over another to protect minors online.
As a lawyer, I have sometimes been told very directly in academic or public forums that “this is not a matter of law, but rather [insérer ici une des réponses qui suivent] » parenting, education, prevention, self-regulation, etc. Along the same lines, a journalist once asked me in an interview about age verification on pornographic sites: “Is it parents or the industry that should we take responsibility? »
We do not have to choose one solution over another. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child carried out an exercise in 2021 which led to the publication of an important commentary on the protection and promotion of children’s rights in the digital environment. He didn’t make a choice. It did not decide between parents, children, educators, governments or industry. He brought together all of these actors around the same table (including 709 children) to reflect. He then published one of the texts that I consider among the most important to date to offer guidelines for protecting children through the omnipresence of screens, and also maximizing the benefits that these offer.
The French report Children and screens. In Search of Lost Time, published last April, results from a similar process where experts from the technology industry, the health and education sectors, lawyers, parents and also children were consulted.
So, to find out who is responsible for the issue of children and screens, first, I would ask what problem we are talking about here. Are we targeting, for example, the excessive use of screens in early childhood? Access to online pornography? Harassment on social networks? Video game addiction? The presence of the telephone in class? Use of screens before entering kindergarten? Next, I would say that we don’t have to choose a single leader or a single solution.
In the academic jargon of the sociology of law, we will speak of “normative plurality”, that is to say a bouquet of solutions, norms, and initiatives which, depending on the contexts and the questions, add up to form an effective response to social problems.
It takes a village to ensure that children’s rights are protected in the digital environment. And for this village to be effective, as expressed in the conclusions of the French report of April 2024 previously cited, the strategies must be concerted and managed collectively to avoid dispersion… and waste of energy.