For 10 years, various anti-screen movements have tried to impose their catastrophist slogans on the public authorities. But when the authorities gave in to the temptation to echo them, the results were disastrous! Not only did the consumption of visual media increase, but it turned out that a significant number of young people had only limited knowledge of digital tools. In Switzerland, since this year, the new brochure published nationally by the FSIO (Federal Social Insurance Office), published in 16 languages (3 national languages and 13 from migration), is called Tips for using digital media safely. And it no longer shows a dazed child in front of a screen, but two children playing a video game!
Guiding rather than banning, encouraging leisure activities without digital media and setting a good example are today the basic pieces of advice given in Switzerland by all early childhood professionals.
The state of Luxembourg is now following the same path. After having given in to the temptation of alarmist campaigns, its Minister of Health launched, on Tuesday 2 October, together with Serge Tisseron, a campaign directly inspired by the 3/6/9/12 milestones. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg thus joins the countries that have decided to break with a populist demagogy that blames screens for every ill, in order to organise a genuine family and educational policy around screens (see News from the world).
The American Academy of Pediatrics itself is evolving. Whereas its first recommendations were purely quantitative (only screen time counted for it, and in a very restrictive way), in 2016 it issued new recommendations that came into line with the proposals made since 2008 by the 3-6-9-12 milestones: recommendations that are less restrictive on age limits and duration, more open to the role of family discussion around screens, and that recognise that digital technologies offer children many opportunities for activities useful to their development.
Welcome to the circle of those who see education about screens as a way of learning both to do without them and to use them!
Serge Tisseron is a psychiatrist, doctor of psychology with accreditation to supervise research, member of the Academy of Technologies, and associate researcher at Université Paris VII Denis Diderot (CRPMS).
