Good news that will delight all supporters of the 3-6-9-12 milestones. Even those involved in designing digital tools are beginning to acknowledge their drawbacks and the risk of abuse harmful to health. In an open letter to Apple, two investors in the company, the activist hedge fund Jana Partners and the California State Teachers Retirement System, voiced their concerns, citing research suggesting that intensive use of digital devices, such as Apple laptops, tablets and smartphones, could have a negative impact on children. They write in a letter dated Saturday 6 January 20181: “There is a growing consensus around the world, including in Silicon Valley, that the potential long-term consequences of new technologies must be taken into account from the outset, and no company can outsource this responsibility”. For these shareholders, tackling the issue now could help Apple avoid an imminent judgement as unease grows about the role that technology and social media play in our daily lives. For them it is also a matter of protecting their investments, and also American power, which rests on the quality of its brains: “We believe that addressing this issue now will enhance long-term value for all shareholders, by creating more choice and options for your customers today and by protecting the next generation of leaders, innovators and customers of tomorrow”. These backers add that Apple should form a committee of experts, fund research, improve parental controls in its products, educate parents and report regularly on the company’s progress.
At “3-6-9-12”, we have been repeating it for ten years: the solution is not to ban such devices from children’s hands, but to help parents understand how to use these technologies in a reasoned way: learn to use them in order to learn to do without them, and learn to do without them in order to learn to use them.
S.T.
Serge Tisseron is a psychiatrist, doctor of psychology with accreditation to supervise research, member of the Académie des technologies, and associate researcher at Université Paris VII Denis Diderot (CRPMS).
