“It’s a whole generation whose future is at stake,” warns a specialist

“We must protect children, it’s an entire generation whose future is at stake,” alert Tuesday April 30 on franceinfo Anne-Lise Ducanda, child development doctor and founder of the Screen Overexposure Collective, while an expert report was submitted the same day to Emmanuel Macron, recommending banning the use of screens to children under 3 years old and mobile phones to children under 11 years old. “I hope that the Commission’s recommendations will be taken up by the government”, she says. “It is no longer enough to warn, it is no longer enough to educate, we cannot educate about something addictive”she says.

In young children who do not “do not yet speak correctly”, “screens deprive them of essential needs linked to development”, prevent them from “creating an attachment relationship with loved ones, especially their parents, and exploring the real world with all their senses,” assures the doctor. She explains that with the use of screens, “the brain and all the socio-emotional and psychological skills of the child cannot be done”. “We see a lot of children in consultation with developmental disorders and when we wean ourselves from screens for several months, we see a very significant restart of development”she continues.

“If you don’t say no screen for three years without explaining, it doesn’t work, it’s too hard. Screens are so practical, they are so everywhere.”

Anne-Lise Ducanda, child development doctor

on franceinfo

According to this specialist, “we need to explain to parents” the repercussions of the hyper connection suffered by children. She calls for “campaigns as strong as for tobacco and as frequent as for Covid”. The commission of experts specially commissioned by the executive also highlights the role of social networks and recommends authorizing access to a mobile phone without internet only from 11 years old and from 13 years old for a smartphone, but without access to social networks. “Removing the smartphone is essential” for Anne-Lise Ducanda who, for her part, defends the ban on the use of a connected smartphone before the age of 15. “We cannot protect children by asking platforms to regulate themselves, which in fact they do not do,” she emphasizes. “I think we are discovering an addiction that we didn’t know about”underlines Anne-Lise Ducanda, before adding that “Social media has all the clinical characteristics of an addiction.”