Screens and children: after the report, the first decisions will be made “in the coming weeks,” Macron said

After the report, he plans to act soon. Following the findings of the commission commissioned to study the use of screens and mobile phones among children and adolescents, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron announced in an interview with La Provence and La Tribune this Sunday that he wants to take “first decisions”. in the coming weeks.”

“I have asked the Prime Minister to initiate a broad consultation that will allow a series of debates to begin, and I will make initial decisions in the coming weeks on screens following the report presented to me this week by a commission of experts that considered these issues,” the head of state points out.

On Wednesday, the president already announced that he would give the government “one month” to study the recommendations of the famous report on screens and “put them into practice.”

“Negative” effects of screens

The report, presented to the president last Tuesday, recommends banning screens and cellphone use among young people and sharply limiting access for teenagers. In this text of about a hundred pages, a commission specially created in January by the Head of State to work on this issue warns about the “negative impact, direct and indirect, of screens,” in particular on sleep, a sedentary lifestyle and even myopia.

The panel’s 10 experts call social media “risk factors” for depression or anxiety in the case of “pre-existing vulnerabilities” and consider the level of children’s exposure to pornographic and violent content to be “alarming.”

While there is no consensus among researchers about the harmful effects of screens on children, the commission reminds that screens “do not cause neurodevelopmental disorders.” But she calls for “vigilance” to “avoid worsening symptoms.”

To try to “regain control,” experts are calling for a ban on all screen use by children under three, followed by “severely limiting” access for ages three to six “with educational-quality content and when accompanied by an adult.”

As for mobile phones, the commission recommends that they be banned for up to 11 years, and phones without Internet for up to 13 years. From this age, she suggests giving a smartphone without access to social networks, and then opening this access from the age of 15 only on “ethical” networks such as Mastodon or Bluesky.