This article appears in “Le Monde de l’Éducation”. If you are subscribed to WorldYou can subscribe to this weekly newsletter by following this link.
On April 30, the report “Children and Screens” was delivered to the President of the Republic. It highlights “the reality of hyperconnectivity that children suffer and the consequences for their health, their development, their future, for our future as well… that of our society, that of our civilization, and perhaps even that of our humanity.”
Faced with such a challenge, what can schools do specifically to protect their students? Continue to suffer or get out of the impasse? It is impossible to ignore: the list of health risks linked to the digital activity of children and adolescents is overwhelming. Language delays, sedentary lifestyle, vision problems, sleep disorders, anxiety, depression…
In France, young people aged 16 to 19 spend an average of five hours and ten minutes a day looking at a screen for strictly recreational purposes and only twelve minutes reading a book for pleasure, according to a study by Ipsos for the National Book Centre.
Our children’s screen time is increasing without barriers, without limits or boundaries, and we know that the consequences on their physical and mental health are serious. It is urgent to act to stop this health disaster. Each of us, parents, teachers, doctors, political leaders, must do so at our level.
Digital crises
Despite this collective awareness, national education continues to be digitalized. The desire to modernize the institution is laudable. However, the misuse of digital technology in schools reinforces the hyperconnection of students to their detriment.
since the 6thmySchools provide students with tablets or computers. These individual digital devices are transforming learning practices: students no longer use planners (the teacher writes down the homework they need to do in the online textbook), no longer have paper textbooks (these are gradually being replaced by their digital version), and they lose the habit of writing (courses can be downloaded in collaborative spaces).
It’s not just about the time spent at school: individual screens have also become indispensable for homework. Through this approach, the school gradually makes students passive in class and dependent on digital technology.
Some actors in the education system emphasise the educational purpose of certain digital applications. “Let’s not demonise the screen!”, “using it is only problematic”, “I’m not doing digital for recreation, long live digital for education!” This is the position of those who do not intend to question the accelerated digitalisation of schools.
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