“They made a resounding entrance into our consultations,” observes an expert from the working group attached to the Élysée

The roadmap set “is above all to bring about a scientific consensus on the consequences of screens on the health of young people”, physical and mental, specifies psychiatrist-addictologist Amine Benyamina.

“Screens have made a sensational entrance into our consultations”alerted Professor Amine Benyamina on Thursday, head of the psychiatry and addictology department at Paul-Brousse hospital and co-chair of the working group attached to the Élysée, responsible for a mission on the impact of young people’s exposure to screens. Emmanuel Macron spoke on Tuesday during a press conference of his intention to regulate the use of screens “for our children”based on the recommendations of this group of experts who must submit their report in March.

“The roadmap entrusted to us is above all to bring about a scientific consensus on the consequences of screens on the health of young people”underlined the psychiatrist-addictologist and president of the French Federation of Addictology (FFA).

franceinfo: Are screens a subject of addiction like any other like alcohol or drugs? ?

Amine Benyamina: Addictologists are responsible for providing information, managing and treating behavioral addictions, and screens have made a sensational entrance into our consultations, particularly when, like me, you are in charge of young people. We receive certain young people for consultation at the request of parents or at the request of the school environment. We receive them because most often, parents are worried about seeing their youngster consume so much screens, they want advice. And as for my service, for the moment, we do not have specific support for screens but often we deal with adolescents who, alongside taking drugs such as alcohol, medications, have excessive screen consumption.

What about the mental health of our young people?

Yes, that is one of the objectives for which the president brought us together. He wanted to know what the impact was on the mental and psychological health of young people. The roadmap entrusted to us is above all to bring about a scientific consensus on the consequences of screens on the health of young people, from mental health to metabolic health with problems linked to a sedentary lifestyle such as obesity.

Emmanuel Macron only talks about young people, but we also need to educate parents on the use of screens ?

The target is young people, but the environment in which they operate is one of the elements on which we will have to make proposals. We are in a system that interacts, there are parents but also teachers. This entire system will have to be the subject of recommendations from the group of experts.

The President of the Republic spoke about the mental health of young people, education, harassment and even democracy and conspiracy. Are we not mixing everything up on this subject? ?

There are very clear links between all of these elements. Mental health is at stake, family harmony and environmental and school life are at stake. We also have the whole issue of truth, of untruth, because the screen becomes the tool through which the truth comes out and is expressed for young people. And so on that, obviously, if you extend the exposure to screens, we find the whole problem of conspiracy.