The matter was considered serious enough for the President of the Republic to take charge of it. A group of experts must, at his request, formulate recommendations in March on “the proper use of screens for our children in families”.
The idea of countering the negative impact of screens on minors is not new – it has existed for a long time for cinema and television but also in digital, with “parental control” devices or, for gaming video, age limits. It is based on an apparently broad scientific consensus. It does not only concern the content broadcast (the most obvious example being that of pornography) but also the reduction in interactions between parents and children, essential to the development of the youngest. In childhood and adolescence, time spent on screens also competes with practices favorable to the development of young people: sport, outdoor activities, sleep, etc. At the heart of the criticism, the Internet, in the broad sense, as the main channel of distribution and interaction on computers and smartphones.
Should we therefore blame online life for all the ills of youth? Is the scientific literature as unanimous as the government claims regarding the harmful effects of screens? Is it not appropriate, with equal force, to promote uses of the Internet which allow one to cultivate oneself, to debate without sinking into the permanent “clash”, to open up to the world? What educational experiences are implemented in this sense? Are we not witnessing, in the words of Anne Cordier, “a phenomenon of moral panic [such as that] observed [with] radio broadcasts devoted to crimes in the 1940s, comic books in the 1940s 1950s, Dungeons and Dragons type role-playing games in the 1980s”? If so, who benefits from this “panic”?
These are some of the questions that the conference-debate “Internet and young people: what are we afraid of? » to which Le Monde and Numérique in common(s) invites you Tuesday March 5, 2024 from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the Le Monde auditorium.
Participating will be Anne Cordier, university professor in information and communication sciences (Mediation Research Center laboratory – University of Lorraine), co-author in particular of Les Enfants et les Ecrans (Retz, 2023); Grégoire Borst, professor of developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience of education at Paris-Cité University and director of the Child Development and Educational Psychology Laboratory (CNRS), member of the expert group on the impact of young people’s exposure to screens; Dominique Pasquier, sociologist, CNRS research director, author in particular of The Internet of Modest Families. Survey in rural France (Paris, Presses des Mines, 2018), and Dorie Bruyas, director of the Fréquence écoles association and the LDigital foundation in Lyon, pilot of the Digital in common(s) event for the National Agency of territorial cohesion (ANCT).
Free entry upon registration by following this link.
