Screens and young people: why we need to take action

In ear­ly 2024, Emmanuel Macron con­vened a com­mis­sion of experts on the effects of screens on young peo­ple’s health. After more than three months’ work, the com­mis­sion not­ed the pre­dom­i­nant – and some­times unin­ten­tion­al – use of screens by young peo­ple, with poten­tial­ly harm­ful con­se­quences. In its report¹, the com­mis­sion pro­pos­es a com­pre­hen­sive action plan to help young peo­ple to bet­ter live with these tools that have become an essen­tial part of their lives.

One of our tasks was to build a sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus on the impact of screens on young peo­ple’s health. We also had to assess the effec­tive­ness of exist­ing mea­sures and put for­ward ideas for future action. Our aim was to put the child back at the heart of the process and to pro­pose a sys­temic action plan. The rea­son why no direc­tive had been drawn up until now was pre­cise­ly because we could­n’t be sat­is­fied with a sin­gle-sec­tor solution.

Our com­mit­tee was made up of ten experts, includ­ing Ser­vane Mou­ton, a neu­rol­o­gist, and Amine Benyam­i­na, an addic­tion psy­chi­a­trist, who co-chaired it. We had extreme­ly var­ied back­grounds and, through our expe­ri­ences, dif­fer­ent opin­ions on the sub­ject, which is why we were keen to find and put in place some­thing we could all agree on.

We con­duct­ed a large num­ber of hear­ings with 180 experts. By pool­ing our work, we were able to draw up a num­ber of con­clu­sions and iden­ti­fy avenues for reflec­tion. We were also keen to include the views of young peo­ple, which is why we also organ­ised work­shops to gath­er their tes­ti­monies and opin­ions, exchange ideas and get them to react to our areas of work. Spe­cial­ist organ­is­ers with expe­ri­ence of this kind of exer­cise were called in.

We put togeth­er a pan­el with as much diver­si­ty as pos­si­ble in the time avail­able. As a result, 150 chil­dren were inter­viewed. This pro­vid­ed us with valu­able input for our dis­cus­sions. We were reas­sured by some things and sur­prised by oth­ers. In all cas­es, the pan­el high­light­ed cer­tain crit­i­cal aspects. We then had to digest this infor­ma­tion and draw up guide­lines, which we set out in detail in our report.

What struck us most was the phe­nom­e­non of “tech­no-con­fer­enc­ing” for chil­dren aged between 0 and 3. In their ear­ly years, if they are to devel­op, they need inter­ac­tion and spe­cial moments with their par­ents. This involves ges­tures, words, lis­ten­ing and look­ing. Putting a screen between par­ent and child inter­feres with the cre­ation of this cru­cial bond, with­out us nec­es­sar­i­ly being aware of it. We did­n’t realise how crit­i­cal this is in today’s society.

Sec­ond­ly, the arrival of mobile screens has led to new modes of con­sump­tion that raise oth­er issues: sit­ting with their screen on their lap, users are exposed to a source of light from below. Ini­tial results show that, in this con­fig­u­ra­tion, blue light is par­tic­u­lar­ly harm­ful to eye­sight. Depend­ing on usage, exces­sive use can lead to myopia (the eye being less exposed to nat­ur­al light and less accus­tomed to look­ing at the hori­zon), dis­rupt sleep and con­tribute to a more gen­er­al seden­tary lifestyle, which has an impact on phys­i­cal capac­i­ty. Phys­i­cal capac­i­ty has fall­en by 30% since the 1990s.

The aim of this obser­va­tion is not to get rid of screens, but to think about when to use them and how; to learn to con­trol their use so as to retain the ben­e­fits. We can adopt a health­i­er lifestyle to min­imise the impact on eye­sight, sleep and activ­i­ty, but we can also turn to alter­na­tives that need to be sup­port­ed and made visible.

We need to re-estab­lish spaces out­side the home for young peo­ple. We’ve built soci­eties where we can’t stand chil­dren mak­ing noise or run­ning around in the street. Or, as par­ents, we are afraid and we ask our chil­dren to stay at home. But we’ve seen how impor­tant it is to get out­doors and be phys­i­cal­ly active.

To address the prob­lem of exces­sive use of screens, we need to ask our­selves why we use them, but also what young peo­ple are look­ing for in them. When we reach ado­les­cence, prob­lems of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion emerge, a need to fit in with a group. Social net­works respond to this need to socialise. But when con­front­ed with eco­nom­ic mod­els designed to cap­ture our atten­tion, we quick­ly become cap­tives, trapped in bub­bles. Sim­i­lar­ly, if we have ques­tions about our love life, our sex­u­al­i­ty, our body or our dis­com­fort… Who can we turn to? Where can you find sup­port and answers? If you don’t know, you go online. If you’re not warned, you run the risk of com­ing across con­tent that is shock­ing, vio­lent or even dangerous.

The work­shops gave us a real insight into the dai­ly lives of teenagers, their expo­sure to screens and the ways in which they use them. We dis­cov­ered that they are nav­i­gat­ing a world that can become an absolute jun­gle if they are not pre­pared for it, or if they are not accom­pa­nied: shock­ing con­tent, harass­ment, sex­tor­tion [Edi­tor’s note: extor­tion of sex­u­al favours via the inter­net], deep­fakes [Edi­tor’s note: mis­lead­ing images and videos gen­er­at­ed using AI], sex­u­al preda­tors… Girls and boys are equal­ly affect­ed, and the most vul­ner­a­ble can find them­selves con­front­ed with dan­ger­ous con­tent very quick­ly. The most strik­ing thing about the young peo­ple’s tes­ti­monies is the way in which they can eas­i­ly come across shock­ing con­tent and accept it with a kind of res­ig­na­tion, which is reflect­ed in the way they tend to triv­i­alise it when they talk about it. How­ev­er, they all told us that they want­ed to be pro­tect­ed from such con­tent, while at the same time seek­ing to main­tain this link with knowl­edge and others.

The most strik­ing thing about the young peo­ple’s tes­ti­monies is the way in which they can eas­i­ly come across shock­ing con­tent and accept it with a, kind of, resignation.

These risks are part of the first line of action we are rec­om­mend­ing: pro­tec­tion and reg­u­la­tion. This also involves iden­ti­fy­ing dark pat­terns [Edi­tor’s note: inter­faces designed to mis­lead users], rab­bit holes [Edi­tor’s note: mech­a­nisms designed to keep users on a plat­form as long as pos­si­ble] and bub­ble sys­tems in which users can find them­selves trapped. It’s also about denounc­ing busi­ness mod­els that cap­ture short atten­tion spans and exploit human bias to get more and more view­ing time.

We iden­ti­fied that it is absolute­ly essen­tial to reg­u­late the plat­forms and make them account­able, espe­cial­ly the big play­ers. But we also need to edu­cate and sup­port young peo­ple in becom­ing autonomous in their dig­i­tal lives. We can’t pre­vent every­thing – and that’s prob­a­bly not the solu­tion – so we need to edu­cate. This means pass­ing on the rules, codes and chal­lenges of the dig­i­tal world, but also prepar­ing chil­dren for future devel­op­ments by giv­ing them the keys, the bench­marks and the means to exer­cise their own crit­i­cal think­ing and rise to the chal­lenges of the future.

Dig­i­tal edu­ca­tion must be a step-by-step process, and school is a safe, super­vised place to learn how to mas­ter this tool. As I said ear­li­er, the best way to pro­tect is to inform. This means under­stand­ing the impact on health and the body’s need to adopt a healthy lifestyle, but also under­stand­ing the con­tent and the inten­tions of those who are offer­ing it to us.

This learn­ing process involves rais­ing aware­ness among edu­ca­tion and health pro­fes­sion­als, as well as par­ents. In a world where dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy is every­where, we all need to realise that these objects and their con­tent are not harm­less, and that at every age we need to adapt our sup­port, but also pro­pose and pro­mote alternatives.

In our work, we have been keen to put for­ward com­ple­men­tary pro­pos­als and to work towards a coher­ent sys­temic response to these issues, which affect all areas of our soci­ety (health, fam­i­ly, edu­ca­tion, econ­o­my, etc.). This means more than just ban­ning mobile phones from schools, as the media cov­er­age might suggest.

We have deliv­ered and pre­sent­ed our report to the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic and the Prime Min­is­ter, as well as to the depart­ments most close­ly involved, i.e. Dig­i­tal, Edu­ca­tion, Fam­i­ly and Health. The objec­tive will then be to find out how each of them will take it on board and pro­pose actions. With the polit­i­cal ups and downs of the sum­mer, we’ve only just begun to meet the new gov­ern­ment play­ers, but our work has been circulated.

Our sup­port con­tin­ues: we are respond­ing to requests to explain and see how we can imple­ment some of the actions we have pro­posed. We talk to elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives and peo­ple with struc­tures in place to make progress on the issue. Dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy can be ben­e­fi­cial, if not indis­pens­able, just like the tools we use to help dys­praxic chil­dren learn. It’s impor­tant to know how to mas­ter it so that we can con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from it and grasp the chal­lenges of its devel­op­ment. It’s impor­tant to pro­vide this kind of understanding.

Interview by Mikaël Mayorgas