In the wake of the Internet restriction to 3 GB per week, an MP is proposing a law advocating the limitation of smartphones and a return to landlines to reduce the ravages of screens and social networks on young people.
A few days ago, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem threw a real paving stone in the pond of the French digital landscape with a shocking proposal which caused a lot of ink to flow – or rather pixels. In a column published on March 18, 2024 in Le Figaro, the former Minister of National Education suggested rationing the Internet consumption of the French in order to free themselves from screen addiction and the dictatorship of social networks. With a measure as simple as it is radical: limiting the amount of data used by each individual to 3 GB per week.
Many voices – often mocking – were immediately raised in the press and on the Internet to explain, with supporting calculations, that this volume of data was totally ridiculous and even completely disconnected from reality, since it would barely be enough to watch an hour of high definition video on Netflix or spend 3 hours on TikTok. And if other estimates allow us to envisage a more moderate use of social networks and the Internet, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem’s deliberately provocative proposal has above all had the desired effect, namely opening the debate on the time devoted to screens in our society, and on the dependence that results from it, particularly on young people.
And we didn’t have to wait long for others to rush into this breach, with even more astonishing proposals. This is the case of the deputy (non-registered) Jean-Baptiste Quenin-Blache who split in the wake of a letter addressed to Marina Ferrari, the new Secretary of State in charge of Digital, letter in which he exposes a bold measure for the month: the outright ban on smartphones and other connected devices (computers, tablets, etc.) for minors in France!
In the letter that we were able to examine, the MP explains that this drastic measure would make it possible to “sustainably detoxify our youth from screens and the disinformation conveyed by social networks, these commercial platforms which exclusively serve private interests, by diverting untrained minds under the pretext of entertainment under the guise of freedom”. He continues by affirming that this total break would be conducive to a return to healthier intellectual and physical activities, by promoting reading (books), concentration, the practice of sport, artistic practice and family discussions. And emphasizing that this measure would perfectly accompany the generalization of the uniform at school, this “unique outfit” desired by President Emmanuel Macron, which is already the subject of experiments in voluntary educational establishments. Still according to Jean-Baptiste Quenin-Blache, it would also support the learning of subjects constituting the basis of education desired by Gabriel Attal, when he was still Minister of National Education,
However, the MP does not forget the need for essential communications. And so that children can communicate with their family, friends, teachers or any other service when needed, he suggests simply going back to the landline! A speech that he argues based on the work of Professor Ian Morac of Holdsworth University, in Bradford, Great Britain, at the origin of the “home phone” movement (literally home telephone) which is already making numerous across the Channel and across the Atlantic in neo-progressive circles – remember that, like other Silicon Valley bosses, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, and Bill Gates, the creator of Microsoft, forbade their children to use computers, tablets and smartphones, so that they grow up without digital pollution…
“They will do like our parents and us“, adds Jean-Baptiste Quenin-Blache, “by calling only when necessary”, specifying that public telephones should also be reinstalled in cabins, for emergency situations. “Galileo didn’t use a computer, Bach didn’t have a telephone, Einstein didn’t know the Internet, and that didn’t stop them from changing the world”concludes the MP, allowing himself an unflattering comparison with the contributions of influencers to Humanity.
It is difficult to say, at this stage, whether this audacious proposal will attract attention in the ministries and in the National Assembly, but there is no doubt that the MP’s letter will arouse numerous indignant and mocking reactions on social networks, as evidenced by the first comments which mention “a hallucinated boomer’s delirium” for a return to the Stone Age.