At the end of 2020, France had 92% of households connected. 8 in 10 French people connect every day to social networks and instant messaging[1]. For a great many people, daily life is becoming very digital. In families, this omnipresence of digital tools raises questions about ways of being together and about the role of parents as responsible role models.
A topical subject, digital education was the subject of numerous French publications in 2020[2]. Several refer to data taken from the study “Parents, children & digital technology”, published by the Observatoire de la Parentalité et de l’Education Numérique (Observatory of Parenting and Digital Education)[3] and the Union Nationale des Associations Familiales (National Union of Family Associations)[4], in the form of a White Paper freely available on the UNAF website[5].
For the first time on this subject, the study combines quantitative data entrusted to Médiamétrie and qualitative data to Anthropodo. Beyond children’s digital equipment and the time spent in front of screens, the commissioning bodies wanted an analysis of the educational strategies used by parents, according to their children’s age.
Reading the white paper gives us food for thought on this complex subject of parents facing new educational challenges and the parent/child relationship with or without digital technology. The assessment of the solutions that parents develop to manage their children’s use raises questions and highlights their questions, their paradoxes and their expectations in terms of support in teaching the use of screens. It allows us to better understand these contradictory behaviours of parents in the face of digital technology.
Thus we can see, for example, how appealing digital education is to families (96% agree that digital technology is a benefit, an opportunity for their children) and their anxieties (95% of them think it can also trigger behavioural problems in young users) ; how much the use of digital tools is discussed in families, sometimes heatedly, (95% of the parents surveyed put in place at least one rule to monitor digital use) ; how many parents are struggling, with no magic solution for calm management, once children grow up (more than a third of parents find the limits set “difficult” or “very difficult” to enforce). All the more so as children get their own phone ever earlier (average age of acquiring a first smartphone 9.9 years, i.e. between CM1 and CM2, ages 9 to 11). This equipment is said to be justified by the fear of excluding the child from a social space, by the way other parents look at the family and, above all, to reassure the parent and know their child can be reached at any time through geolocation. And yet, while it seems to represent a form of “all-risk insurance”, geolocation can weaken the trust between parents and children (24% of parents say they have sometimes used “spyware”, without necessarily telling their children).
The results of the study also remind us how the biggest consumers of screens are the parents, at the risk of undermining their role as responsible role models. Aware that limiting or banning use can be a source of conflict, parents feel helpless and are waiting for local support.
The various chapters of the white paper come with recommendations and prevention messages for those who provide support and, in the last part of the guide, clear advice suited to parents of young children and parents of teenagers.
Particular attention should be paid to the date on which the surveys and interviews of this study were carried out (last quarter of 2019), just before the lockdown period. Consequently, they do not take into account the impact of the health crisis on remote schooling and its consequences for social inequalities in access to digital education.
Since then, many research laboratories, collectives and education associations have invested heavily in understanding and sharing how educational continuity was put in place, looking at how pupils, teachers and parents felt during this unprecedented period. We can mention the summary of the IFOP study[6] (Parents’ views on remote schooling) which provides some answers about the least well-connected families, the CNRS article (Do children learn less well remotely?[7]) and the first results published by IFE in Lyon (School, digital technology and lockdown and Digital education and research – crossed perspectives[8]).
Let us end with the words of Grégoire Borst[9] on the question “Can we learn with digital technology?” “What is certain is that, contrary to some beliefs, digital technology is not bad in itself. It is all a question of content”.
MCécile COURCHAY
mc.courchay@gmail.com
[1]MILDECA/Harris barometer on screen use and associated issues “L’essentiel sur … les usages problématiques d’écrans” 29/11/2020 – French people aged 15 to 75 – https://www.drogues.gouv.fr/lessentiel-usages-problematiques-decrans – https://www.mediametrie.fr/fr/lannee-internet-2020
[2]Webography of 2020 publications attached
[3]Open https://www.open-asso.org/
[5]White paper Parents, children & digital technology https://www.unaf.fr/spip.php?article28139
[6]IFOP surveyhttps://www.ifop.com/publication/le-regard-des-parents-sur-lecole-a-distance/
[7]INSERM articlehttps://www.inserm.fr/actualite/enseignement-enfants-apprennent-ils-moins-bien-distance
[8]https://edunumrech.hypotheses.org/tag/regards-croises
[9]Grégoire Borst, professor of developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience of education,
director of the LaPsyDÉ laboratory (CNRS)
