While smartphones are set to be banned in all middle schools by 2025 as part of the “digital break”, experts are recommending that parents only give in to mobile phones from a certain age. And for the Internet and social networks, we’ll have to wait a little longer.
Faced with the emergence of new technologies, more and more parents are giving their children a mobile phone. While they see a practical side to it: the child can send a message to notify them of their arrival at school or home, contact them in the event of a problem, and socialize with their classmates, the dangers are also numerous. Sleep disorders, risks of a sedentary lifestyle and cyberbullying, academic failure… For several years, exposure to screens has continued to worry specialists. Especially since children are getting their first smartphone at an increasingly young age, on average at the age of 9 years and 9 months, according to a study by Médiamétrie.
For this 2024 school year, the government has also set up a new experiment called the digital break. The objective: to combat cyberbullying and improve the academic results of students who would then be more focused in class. Since September, nearly 200 schools have volunteered, which concerns around 50,000 students. The latter must drop off their smartphone, but also their tablet, their smart watch and other communication tools, at the entrance to the school and then pick it up at the exit. A measure that should be generalized from January 2025.
In a report submitted to Emmanuel Macron last spring, experts agreed on the age at which it was possible to give a child a cell phone. “This age corresponds to an important stage in the life of the young person who gradually leaves childhood and prepares for his entry into adolescence. It is the age from which, most often, he enters secondary school“, or from 11 years old. But under conditions.
Indeed, specialists recommend that parents use it in a supervised manner: “This phone should be limited to the sole possibility of making calls and sending messages, with limited packages, but not yet being able to go on the Internet independently”. To access the Internet, according to the Commission of Experts, it will be necessary to wait until the age of 13, “on the condition that access to social networks and illegal content is not permitted”. As for social networks, this is not before the age of 15. In the United States, the New York City Health Commissioner has just made a new recommendation to parents: that they do not give a mobile phone before the age of 14.