As you have just seen, your newsletter has changed. It is no longer called 3-6-9-12+, but PLEM. Of course, you will still find all the sections you enjoy on screen use in the family, notably our advice on video games and our updates on the latest scientific research available.
So why this change? Because since 2017 the 3-6-9-12+ association has belonged to a collective of associations called PLEM, an acronym that stands for “Petits laboratoires d’empathie” (Small empathy laboratories). It brings together four associations: 3-6-9-12+, which you know well (https://www.3-6-9-12.org/), but also Développer l’empathie par le jeu des trois figures (Developing empathy through the Three Figures game) (https://3figures.org/), the Institut pour l’étude des relations hommes-robots (Institute for the Study of Human-Robot Relations) (https://www.ierhr.org/), and finally Pocket film empathie (https://www.pocketfilms-empathie.com/).
These four associations, all created by Serge Tisseron, had from the outset one and the same objective : to create spaces in which to imagine and experiment with new forms of social and emotional closeness, in order to foster the creation of bonds and the flourishing of everyone’s skills.
With 3-6-9-12+, in 2008, we targeted parents, educators and teachers. With the Three Figures game, in 2006, our aim was to work with teachers and children, from nursery to high school, on creating a calm school climate that encourages exchange and mutual help, because these two conditions have always seemed to us the best way of fighting violence and bullying. With the creation of the IERHR in 2013, we wanted to show the urgency of building ethical reference points in our relationships with machines. It was indeed clear as early as 2010 that we would soon be confronted with unpredictable and fascinating artificial intelligences, put at the service of conversational or companion robots, and that it was necessary, as with screens, to set guidelines for use suited to children’s ages. Finally, so as to leave no one by the wayside, we created in 2015 the “Pocket Film Empathie” programme, intended for young people out of school and at risk of radicalisation or delinquency. Helped by street educators, they are invited to use the smartphone they have in their pocket to build a subjective identity based on their personal experiences of the world, so as to allow them to step back from the extremist temptations they face.
As it was around the 3-6-9-12+ milestones that we were first most in demand, we created our first newsletter in 2018 within the framework of this association. But today it is hard to isolate the question of screens from the place algorithms take in it, and to ignore their role in violence and bullying. In the same way, in 2006, when the first educational programme, the Three Figures game, was set up, the situation in schools could be seen as independent of digital tools. Social networks had not taken the place they have today, and in fact there was only one, Facebook, created the same year. Today, cyberbullying relays face-to-face intimidation everywhere and is a problem for many pupils, and also for their parents, who struggle to grasp what their children are doing with screens and social networks.
Thus digital technology has ended up linking together areas of intervention that at the start of the 2000s seemed able to remain separate : the place of screens in our lives, action in favour of a calm school climate, and the arrival of domestic robots. That is why, having first thought of creating a newsletter for each of our associations, we opted for a joint newsletter under the PLEM banner.
You will find the articles more specifically linked to each association marked with a specific colour : grey-blue for 3-6-9-12, sky blue for DEPj3f and purple for the IERHR.
This new format will allow our readers interested in one area of our activities, whether regulating screens in the family, fighting violence in schools or ways of living in harmony with machines, to learn about the actions we are taking in each of these fields.
Thank you for following us on this adventure, because in 2025 we need “small empathy laboratories” more than ever !
