There was a time, within living memory, when even the best parents might have seated a child in the "death seat" of their car or allowed their offspring to ride in the back without a seatbelt, when smoking in high schools was common, and when school and workplace bullying were taboo topics. In a few years, will we look back with the same dismay at how we turned a blind eye or claimed helplessness in the face of the damage that screens and social media caused to today's young children and adolescents?
Paradoxically, parents now monitor their children much more closely than before, yet they allow them, reluctantly or not, to spend hours (between three and five per day for those aged 7 to 19) glued to screens. This practice durably alters children's intellectual capabilities and leads teenagers to compulsively seek recognition, exposes them to absurd stereotypes of beauty or sexuality, confronts them with violence and pornography, and places them under the control of bullies, charlatans, and hatemongers.
As with nicotine or speeding on roads, the reality and scale of the damage are well-documented. "We have strong data, yet nothing happens. (...) It's about the health of children, but no one cares," said Bruno Falissard, president of the French Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, at the end of April. He co-signed an alarming document urging the government to implement preventive measures.
Screens are "not suitable for a developing brain" and should be banned for children under 6, concluded five scientific associations. Their effects include hindered development of language and cognitive abilities, permanent hyper-excitation, sleep and vision disorders, and intolerance to frustration.
Investigation focused on TikTok
As for teenagers, their addiction to social media "reduces the time available for face-to-face play in the real world" and takes away from social learning – the emotional connection to others – which is "as essential for social development as movement and exercise are for physical development," writes the American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt in The Anxious Generation.
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