How to manage children’s relationship with screens

The ever-increas­ing num­ber of screens and their dai­ly use in our lives rais­es the ques­tion of their impact on our health. But what does the cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture real­ly tell us about the impact of screens on the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal health of chil­dren and teenagers?

This is one of the ques­tions that the report “Chil­dren and Screens: In Search of Lost Time¹”, sub­mit­ted to French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron in April 2024 and pre­vi­ous­ly reviewed by Cather­ine Rol­land for Poly­tech­nique Insights, seeks to answer. The title of this report, far from refer­ring to the hours lost in front of screens, is in fact aimed at the delay in pub­lic poli­cies to reg­u­late their use.

The fig­ures don’t lie, in 2022 French house­holds had an aver­age of 10 dig­i­tal devices with screens (smart­phones, tele­vi­sions, e‑readers, com­put­ers, tablets, games con­soles, con­nect­ed bracelets, etc.). The same year, the Dig­i­tal Barom­e­ter showed that 87% of the over-12s owned a smart­phone, includ­ing 89% of 13–19 year-olds. These teenagers also own 69% of per­son­al com­put­ers and 63% of games con­soles. But if our screen time and dig­i­tal usage are sky­rock­et­ing, can we still talk about addiction?

To date, pro­longed use of devices with screens is not offi­cial­ly recog­nised as an addic­tive behav­iour, main­ly because it includes very het­ero­ge­neous and var­ied prac­tices. How­ev­er, sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies and sur­veys by San­té Publique France record dai­ly screen time, with fig­ures rang­ing from 2 to 3 hours for 10-year-olds (3 hours 07 min­utes in the 2015 Este­ban study; 2 hours 36 min­utes in the 2022 Elfe cohort).

How­ev­er, for Gré­goire Borst, pro­fes­sor of devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy and cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at Uni­ver­sité́ Paris-Cité and direc­tor of the CNRS Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Child Devel­op­ment and Edu­ca­tion Psy­chol­o­gy (LaP­sy­DÉ), “talk­ing about screen time makes no sense! Tak­ing into account the qual­i­ty of what we watch, on the oth­er hand, seems more rel­e­vant.” It seems dif­fi­cult to lump togeth­er video games, car­toons or videos of nurs­ery rhymes played over and over again.

This het­ero­gene­ity jus­ti­fies great cau­tion in sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles seek­ing to deter­mine the neg­a­tive effects of screen use on the cog­ni­tive capac­i­ties and devel­op­ment of young peo­ple. This cau­tion is echoed in the con­clu­sion of the meta-analy­sis pub­lished in Novem­ber 2023: An umbrel­la review of the ben­e­fits and risks asso­ci­at­ed with young people’s inter­ac­tions with elec­tron­ic screens by Taren Sanders & Co². By review­ing around a hun­dred stud­ies on the sub­ject, the Aus­tralian researchers found pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive effects, of “low to mod­er­ate” inten­si­ty, asso­ci­at­ed with the use of devices with screens. Only the cor­re­la­tion between social net­work­ing and depres­sion seems note­wor­thy, although it is still too ear­ly to estab­lish a causal link.

Yet in 2017, a study by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rennes³ wide­ly report­ed by the media point­ed to a link between “watch­ing tele­vi­sion in the morn­ing” and “devel­op­ing a lan­guage dis­or­der.” For Gré­goire Borst, these results con­ceal a more con­crete expla­na­tion: a child watch­ing TV alone will inter­act less with adults and there­fore speak less. On the oth­er hand, “watch­ing tele­vi­sion with chil­dren has a pos­i­tive effect on lan­guage devel­op­ment,” explains the researcher. Watch­ing tele­vi­sion with a child also helps to devel­op joint attention.

Oth­er phe­nom­e­na, such as tech­no-con­fer­enc­ing, have a much more neg­a­tive impact on chil­dren. This term refers to the use of screens by adults in front of chil­dren, inter­fer­ing with their inter­ac­tion with them. “If, tomor­row, we take screens away from all the chil­dren in the world but not from adults, I’m not sure that many things will change,” adds Gré­goire Borst, who again stress­es the impor­tance of co-view­ing to counter this phenomenon.

It’s hard to talk about a neg­a­tive effect on the cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment of young peo­ple. So, are fears about the use of screens unfound­ed? “No, we must con­tin­ue to warn, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the “no screens before the age of 3 pol­i­cy,” insists the researcher. Because the real prob­lem is the somat­ic risks!” Lack of sleep and a seden­tary lifestyle, could these be the real dangers?

The issue of time and qual­i­ty of sleep is at the top of the list of con­cerns raised by the report Chil­dren and screens: in search of lost time. Chron­ic sleep debt leads to a cas­cade of health prob­lems (excess weight, dia­betes, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, mood dis­or­ders, depres­sion, poor immune reg­u­la­tion, etc.). Yet “we know that chil­dren don’t get enough sleep,” points out Gré­goire Borst, who points out that the rhythm nat­u­ral­ly shifts in ado­les­cents, despite their school timetable, which is often poor­ly adapt­ed. “If we add the use of screens in the evening, we increase the risk of insom­nia, anx­i­ety and health prob­lems in gen­er­al.” The same is true of the risks asso­ci­at­ed with a seden­tary lifestyle, which is itself encour­aged by dig­i­tal activ­i­ties that take place seat­ed and indoors.

Anoth­er point to watch out for is young people’s expo­sure to inap­pro­pri­ate or even shock­ing con­tent on the Inter­net. “It would nev­er occur to any­one to give a child a very sharp knife the first time they learn to cook” explains the researcher. “It’s the same for the Inter­net in gen­er­al.” Which brings the impor­tance of co-view­ing and super­vi­sion of these prac­tices back to the cen­tre of the recommendations.

Even among old­er young peo­ple! Because teenagers are very vul­ner­a­ble to social net­works, whose algo­rithms favour social rewards. While the lim­bic sys­tem, which con­trols anx­i­ety, emo­tions and addic­tion mech­a­nisms, is mature at this age, the pre­frontal cor­tex, which is respon­si­ble for reg­u­lat­ing this sys­tem, con­tin­ues to devel­op until the age of 25. “Ado­les­cents are emo­tion­al pres­sure cook­ers with nei­ther the lid nor the means to low­er the pres­sure,” says Gré­goire Borst once again. That’s why it’s so impor­tant to pro­vide sup­port and open up a dia­logue about these uses with­in the family.

In fact, this is Gré­goire Borst’s final piece of advice: “It’s a good idea to think up times for dis­con­nec­tion with­in the fam­i­ly, for both chil­dren and adults.” It’s a way of open­ing up com­mu­ni­ca­tion on these uses by set­ting aside times for exchanges, such as meal­times or the time before going to bed.

Sophie Podevin