Enfants et écrans : à la recherche du temps perdu
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In January 2024, France's President asked a ten-member expert commission to spend three months studying children's exposure to screens; psychiatrist-addictologist Amine Benyamina and neurologist Servane Mouton co-chaired it. After interviewing roughly 150 young people and more than 100 professionals, the commission delivered a 130-page report in April 2024 with 29 directive recommendations. It describes French households owning about 10 screens on average and links heavy, unaccompanied screen exposure to poorer sleep, reduced physical activity, and myopia, and — framed as a risk factor among vulnerable teens, not a single cause — to associations with anxiety, depression, and suicide-risk indicators. It proposes no smartphone before 11, no connected phone before 13, and no social media before 15 except on 'ethically' designed platforms, plus new obligations on platforms, schools, and parents. TechKids treats the report as association-level evidence, consistent with the commission's own caution against single-cause claims.
The commission found French households own roughly 10 networked screens on average, with children increasingly exposed to them at home, at school, and in public space.
The report organizes its proposals into 29 numbered recommendations across six thematic axes, from redesigning addictive platform features to staged age thresholds and new government oversight bodies.
Citing an Ined-Inserm cohort survey, the report notes the average age of first personal smartphone ownership among French children was about 9 years and 8 months as of 2022.
Commission d'experts sur l'impact de l'exposition des jeunes aux écrans (co-chairs Servane Mouton and Amine Benyamina). "Enfants et écrans : à la recherche du temps perdu." Report to the President of the French Republic, April 30, 2024.