Facebook France announced Thursday the launch of the “Connected Parents Club”, a group dedicated to issues related to parenting and digital life, which will put parents in touch with associations and experts.
This project was born within the French teams of the social network, from a double observation: on the one hand the growing success of Facebook groups, which bring together 28 million members in France, including two million on subjects related to parenting and education (a figure that swelled to 700,000 members during confinement);
and on the other hand, a crying need for support as digital technologies have become part of our daily lives without being trained to understand them.
“We have conversations with other parents all the time, questions we ask ourselves, and we see that parents need to be informed, to have access to experts and do not necessarily know who to whom. to turn when they have questions ”, explained to AFP Michelle Gilbert, communications director of Facebook France, herself a mother of four children.
Virtual cafes with experts
This club, announced on the occasion of the day against school bullying, takes the form of a Facebook group which will offer resources, tutorials and advice from associations such as Unaf and E -fance as well as 'experts, which can be called upon in particular during "virtual cafes", confinement requires.
"All the themes on the digital life of families can be addressed: video games, social networks, binge watching series ...", specifies Michelle Gilbert.
For Justine Atlan, general manager of E -fance, “this club corresponds to a real problem that we have as a prevention association: it is very difficult to reach the parents who need it most, in particular because that they are running out of time ”.
And this group will be able to help "share tips or good practices, without being in the search for a perfect solution", she hopes.
“There is a real confusion of parents, and a generational gap, which makes it very difficult for parents to understand the digital dimension of the lives of their adolescents,” which has yet become essential to understand them, she says.
In addition to this club, which requires being a member of the network, Facebook is launching a portal accessible without registration.
Called “online and safe”, it offers resources for young people, parents and educators.
