France has moved to accelerate legislation that would ban social media use for children under 15. The move was announced by French President Emanuel Macron in a boldly worded video statement early on Sunday morning.
“We are banning social media for under-15s, and we are going to ban mobile phones in our high schools.“I believe this is a clear rule. Clear for our teenagers, clear for families, clear for teachers, and we are moving forward,” Macron said.
Macron’s announcement came just days after the British government said it would consider banning young teenagers from social media as governments tighten laws to protect children’s mental health from harmful content and excessive screen time.
“The brains of our children and our teenagers are not for sale. The emotions of our children and our teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated. Neither by American platforms, nor by Chinese algorithms,” Macron had submitted to the AFP in a video statement earlier today.
Science behind the ban
The move was prompted by France’s health watchdog’s (ASEEN) ruling last week where it stated that social media had numerous detrimental effects for adolescents, particularly girls, while not being the sole reason for their declining mental health.
ASEEN’s ruling was based on a research paper published by an Australian scholar named Ben Singh. Ben Singh from the University of Adelaide tracked more than 100,000 young Australians over three years for a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Through his study, Ben found out that the young people with the worst wellbeing were those who used social media heavily, more than two hours a day, or not at all. It was teens who used social networks moderately that fared the best.
“The findings suggest that both excessive restriction and excessive use can be problematic,” Singh told AFP.
Mixed reaction
The initiative to ban kids from social media in the UK and France has been met with a mixed reaction from psychological researchers.
Supporters of a ban warn that action needs to be taken to tackle deteriorating mental health among young people, but others say the evidence is inconclusive and want a more nuanced approach.
While scholars like Jonathan Haid argue that spending too much time on social media is rewiring children’s brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness. Another school of researchers bet that Haid’s claims are barely supported by science.
“My read is that Haidt is more right than his harshest critics admit, and less right than his book implies,” French psychologist Noetel said, arguing that even small effects add up when applied to millions of teenagers across the world.