what is the ideal age for children to have their first smartphone?

At 10 and a half, Louise dreams of having a telephone. Of the 27 students in her class, she is the only one without a smartphone, but her father is wary of connected devices. “If I see that she is really penalized because the teachers, because the friends, that the communication is done only by that (…) at that time, yes”, concedes Alexandre Georgandas, father of a family. Like many parents, he worries that his daughter is spending too much time on her phone.

Between the ages of 11 and 14, 65% of children have a telephone. On all the devices of the college students, all were restrained. Their parents installed locks to protect them. A psychology researcher studies the impact of screens on the brains of children. “The real challenge, it is beyond giving a laptop, it is to be able to find out what the children are doing on this laptop”explains Grégoire Borst, laboratory director of child psychology and development.