Serge Tisseron<\/a> back in 2008. Until the age of three, a child should spend as little time as possible in front of screens. It may not be possible to avoid them altogether, but a serious attempt should be made for under-threes to never be in front of one.<\/p>\nUntil they turn six, a child shouldn\u2019t be allowed to have their own portable device, be that tablet or game console. Between six and nine, a child should be able to, say, watch television alone or play video games offline, but they shouldn\u2019t be able to access the internet in any way. Between nine\u00a0 and 12, they should only be able to be online when an adult is present in the room, and able to see their screen if needed. Only at 12 should they be allowed to use their own device to go on the internet by themselves.<\/p>\n
Now, to preempt any critiques: yes, these 3-6-9-12 rules are quite draconian. My social bubble is only one of millions in Britain, but few of my \u2013 educated, middle-class, do-gooder \u2013 friends are in any way close to obeying all these rules. It also seems worth pointing out that, at risk of stating the obvious, technology has changed a fair amount between 2008 and 2025. Some of these things would have been easier 17 years ago than they would be in today\u2019s world.<\/p>\n
Still, other things should be made clear too. The first one is that those rules are straightforward, and can be remembered easily. If in doubt, Google \u201c36912 \u00e9crans\u201d and you can get a quick reminder. Another more important one is that these aren\u2019t laws: the French gendarmerie will not break into your home if they find your toddler watching Bluey in the sitting room.<\/p>\n
Like NHS guidance on the number of alcoholic units an adult should drink in a week, there is no great expectation that everyone will change their behaviour overnight. Instead, both of them exist to give people a sense of what best practice looks like, and remind them that this thing they enjoy \u2013 be that sticking their kid in front of the iPad or sinking a glass of Merlot after work \u2013 can actually be harmful. You may not always stick to the rules, but at least you know what you ought to be doing.<\/p>\n
Really, the question is: why isn\u2019t Britain doing the same thing? The Online Safety Bill has been on everyone\u2019s lips for the past few weeks, as multiple websites including Bluesky have been made to confirm the age of their users. The law\u2019s purpose is to ensure that minors no longer have access to harmful content online but, already, there are worries that many sites will throw the baby out with the bathwater.<\/p>\n
From teens no longer able to access educational content on healthy sexual relationships to international sites simply deciding that the UK\u2019s rules are too stringent to bother engaging with altogether, the unintended consequences could be far-reaching. More broadly, it seems worth asking if it really is the best \u2013 or only \u2013 thing we can do.<\/p>\n
The internet has changed our lives so quickly and in so many ways that attempting to update legislation in real time can feel like playing whack-a-mole. One way of dealing with this could be to recognise that, before banning this or that, seeking to educate people on best practice and potential harms could go a long way. It won\u2019t fix everything, but wouldn\u2019t fixing at least something feel like a hell of a start?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOh yes\u201d, she told me, \u201cit\u2019s the 3-6-9-12 rule!\u201d. I was talking to a relative in France who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,182,96305],"class_list":{"0":"post-310547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-social-media","12":"tag-technology-and-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114956261696521068","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}