While lockdown requires us to stay at home and we struggle daily against the overuse of screens, they are called upon to play a major role during this unprecedented period. And this crisis is also a unique opportunity to build something new, which will last after the epidemic is over.
Let’s set a clear programme for everyone’s family and personal timetable.
It is essential to create new habits very quickly that reconcile everyone’s time alone, whether devoted to work or leisure, with shared time. Human beings do need contact, of course, but they also need solitude. For there to be moments of sharing, there must be moments of withdrawal. Without them, people feel they are not free. From this point of view, using a mobile phone is a signal we send, showing that we do not want to be disturbed. But the same must also apply to someone who is immersed in a book or who needs to meditate. Without these moments of solitude, forced cohabitation can become very complicated.
Let’s talk to our children by valuing helpful and supportive behaviour.
Some words are terrible. War, which the President of the Republic mentioned several times in his address of 16 March, disaster, death, shortage… And the news bulletins also contain distressing images, such as people entirely covered in protective suits that make them look like real deep-sea divers, and also images of supermarkets stormed by panicking customers. Even if we keep our young children from seeing this, we cannot help talking about it, and so we cannot stop them from hearing us say these words. So let us take things up again with them, reassure them, stress how our elected officials are trying to protect us, mention the building of a field hospital by the army in the eastern region, the heroism of the doctors, the dedication of the employees who continue to meet our essential needs for electricity or gas despite the risks of infection they run. In short, let us value, as often as possible and in front of them, everything that has to do with mutual help, solidarity and empathy. And let us seize every opportunity that arises to let our children make gestures of solidarity, such as applauding our medical teams every evening at 8 pm.
Let’s give our children a voice
It is always hard to know how a child experiences a word, an image, or a remark that we mean humorously but whose double meaning they do not understand. So let us not see our role as parents only as explaining to the child what we imagine they might not understand, or might misunderstand. Let us ask them how they understand what is happening, what worries them, invite them to imagine what could happen, and if they are small, let us not hesitate to invite them to draw the way they perceive the situation. Inviting our children to tell us about their experience of the world is also inviting them to develop their storytelling skills, their imagination and their ability to socialise.
Let’s resist the temptation of rolling news.
In such a difficult period, it is a strong temptation for each of us to follow the pandemic in real time: its progress, the number of deaths, the possible discovery of a vaccine, or possible additional measures restricting freedoms intended to fight the spread of the virus. But while some rolling news spaces are very well made, others risk presenting the news without perspective, in an exaggeratedly pessimistic or optimistic way, with the risk of depressing us at the time, or of depressing us later if the positive news is finally contradicted. Rolling news, which is often not put in context, risks wearing down our capacity for empathy and feeding our sense of powerlessness. Let us prefer news from official channels, television channels and printed newspapers. Let us watch them as a family and take the time to talk about it with our children.
Let’s set explicit rules for everyone’s use of screens
We obviously must not underestimate how difficult it will be to manage this situation, but there may be positive effects. For example, it will force families to set clear rules about their use, when they had not done so until now. This move from implicit to explicit rules is a positive step.
Let’s make clear distinctions between work screens, leisure screens, solitary screens and shared screens.
This new approach may allow us to stop talking about screens in purely quantitative terms and finally approach them from a qualitative angle. With screens, what matters most is less the time spent on them than the use made of them.
Let’s learn to use our screens for everything they can offer
Whereas many people usually just use screens to watch series or use social networks, to unwind at the end of a working day, they will be able to discover that screens can be used to stroll around a museum, watch historical documentaries, follow tutorials to get started with yoga, dance or gymnastics or, why not, learn foreign languages.
Using screens “by default” will be called into question by the fact that we will have access to them at any time of day. And this freedom of choice will precisely allow us to realise that the problem is not screen time, but the way programmes are chosen and the way children, in particular, are accompanied in their viewing.
Not all screens are for all ages.
If there are few rooms in the house, for example, this should make parents much more vigilant: if a teenager wants to watch a trashy series at 2 pm and the youngest child is also in the living room, this is not the moment. Even if you are not worried about your children’s screen time, you cannot fail to be worried about what they are watching.
The specific problem of the mobile phone
It is now or never, if you have not already done so, to introduce the two basic rules for using the mobile in the family: never use it during meals and never take it into the bedroom.
Moreover, it is important to respect at home what already exists at school: when doing schoolwork, at school as at home, the phone is not within reach. And this must be done straight away, otherwise it becomes an acquired right that will be very hard to go back on.
Serge Tisseron is a psychiatrist, doctor of psychology accredited to supervise research, member of the Académie des technologies, associate researcher at the Université de Paris (CRPMS).
