Former Minister of National Education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem is the director of the NGO ONE and the president of France Terre d'Asile.
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I have a problem.
You have a problem.
We have a problem.
This one is both obvious – it’s a problem – and at the same time we tend not to see it.
It is invasive, and at the same time we cherish it.
We endure it, but refuse to let it be resolved.
This problem is that of our relationships with screens, and, more concretely, with the internet.
It is not for me here to launch into yet another complaint with retrograde overtones.
That would be particularly unwelcome: I am not the last one to use social networks, to say to myself, take one more look, just before going to sleep, and to find myself, two hours later, commenting, becoming indignant , to smile and have fun too.
The fact remains that the problem is there, obvious, but that we refuse to provide a political solution.
If I speak of the obvious, it is because all the major subjects, ecology, discrimination, inequalities, harassment, education, knowledge and cultures, are linked to the internet.
The latter is less often a solution than an aggravating factor.
Between studies highlighting the devastation caused by overexposure to screens, those showing the extent to which social networks are toxic – particularly for young girls – or the recent work of the Senate on the harm of online pornography – without forgetting the issues linked to the development of AI and the democratization of
deep fakes
, it is surprising that no one has ever asked the right question: not how to constrain companies, or how to regulate the use – we know very well that there is an addictive dimension in our relationship with screens, and that addiction is never resolved by the good will of those who maintain it or suffer from it.
But simply: do we need that much internet?
If we know that we only have three gigabytes to use in a week, we are probably not going to spend them posting hateful comments or creating
fakes
.
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem
And, as we are incapable of setting limits for ourselves – let's admit it, and stop falling into the trap of all these elected officials who thunder against young people and their dependence on screens but rush to their phones during the sessions at the Assembly, in the Senate, or elsewhere – the constraint must come from elsewhere: therefore from the law, therefore from the State.
This is why I would like us to think concretely about ways to ration the internet, for example by granting a limited number of gigabytes to be used daily.
What I am proposing, in short, is a large-scale political action, the consequences of which will be beneficial on many levels: in terms of cognitive development, for health, but also to fight against discrimination, harassment, global warming and many other absolutely fundamental issues for today.
So, of course, rationing the Internet won't make all the problems go away.
But rarity requires a certain wisdom.
If we know that we only have three gigabytes to use in a week, we are probably not going to spend them posting hateful comments or creating
fakes
.
Perhaps we will stop considering it “normal” to spend several hours on porn sites watching ultra HD videos.
Also read: Children and screens: what does science really say?
Perhaps we will then learn to cultivate this
“ecology of attention”
dear to Yves Citton, and quite simply to look at ourselves again, to consider ourselves differently.
And I'm not even emphasizing the peace that such a measure could bring to family relationships...
So, obviously, as soon as I mention this possibility of internet rationing, accusations rain down: unrealistic!
reactionary!
DICTATORIAL – after all China does it!
You imagine ?
China !
Is this what we want for our children?
But unless I'm mistaken, in China, we also treat the sick, and I don't see why this should lead us not to do it, and to close all our hospitals.
Reactionary?
On the contrary, it seems to me that such a measure is profoundly progressive: because it makes it possible to concretely tackle one of the major sources of pollution – digital technology;
because it promotes the fight against cyberharassment and online violence and discrimination;
because it also acts for the health of all of us, both mentally, cognitively and physically, by preventing us from wallowing in a harmful sedentary lifestyle;
because finally we know that, on the internet, it is never intelligence that wins… unfortunately…
There is a digital emergency just as there is a climate emergency.
It's not about sending additional satellites into space, but about pulling the plug, turning off our screens, and finally starting to live again.
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem
Finally, there remains the question of the realism of such a measure.
This obviously requires large-scale collective work and real consultation.
For example, what about for businesses?
Will they be subject to this limit or not?
And if there are exceptions, are there not risks of abuse?
There are, obviously, many points to be resolved, and it is not in this forum that we will get there.
But we can also, from now on, consider that many of the activities that we have become accustomed to doing online can also be done without it.
You can write your emails for the day on a word processor before sending them.
You can go and ask a colleague a question, or even benefit from the famous “coffee machine” effect;
you can even, as anyone who knows a little bit about programming will tell you, code without a computer, with a pencil and paper.
In short, perhaps the time has come to detoxify ourselves collectively, and therefore to ration the internet.
We can't cross our fingers and hope that this gets better, and that our awareness campaigns prevent us from putting our children in front of a smartphone to occupy them during a train journey, because we are too tired to take care of them. 'them.
No ministerial message will be able to prevent a teenager from ruining his life on the internet.
This does not and cannot work.
If we don't voluntarily unplug the cord, the possibilities for the internet to self-regulate are the same as for financial markets, and we can see how well it works...
Also readScreens: are we really doing enough to protect children?
So yes, it takes real courage.
This courage that we have forgotten, by signing online petitions, by posting comments and being outraged in tweets.
All these actions have their virtue: they also have their limits.
Above all, they do not, in reality, require anything from us, unlike the possibility of rationing.
So let's be courageous and determined.
Many voices will rise against this proposal, starting with ours, with mine, deep within me, even as I write these lines.
But we have already lost too much time to waste any more.
There is a digital emergency just as there is a climate emergency.
It's not about sending additional satellites into space, but about pulling the plug, turning off our screens, and finally starting to live again.
And if there are many of us who demand that we break our dependence on fossil fuels, we must also be able to demand it for our more personal dependencies, and in particular that which connects us to this object that you may have in your hand as you read these lines.
Because yes, I have a problem, you have a problem, we have a problem: turning a blind eye won't change anything.
This is the screen we need to turn off.