The ELFE study of children’s screen use during the first six years of life
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The subject of children’s relationships with screens tends to generate suspicion and educational advice in equal measure, with the concomitant risks of addiction, pathological development, and deviant behavior highlighted in both cases. The old moral panic over television has now been updated to include fears about digital technology. This study is a four-year extension of the analysis of the birth cohort of the French Longitudinal Study from Childhood (ELFE) looking at the screen habits of young children (from birth to the age of two). Based on a panel of 18,000 children born in 2011, it produces a national picture of household devices and the frequency with which children are exposed to various screens. By the age of five and a half, screens feature in the daily lives of all children, and single-screen consumption (i.e. of television) is gradually declining in favor of a multi-screen environment, in which television nevertheless remains central. However, children’s relationships with television and digital screens such as computers, tablets, and smartphones vary widely over the first six years of their lives, suggesting a divergent appropriation of educational norms depending on factors such as class, family structure, educational practices, and their own parents’ relationship with screens.
Réseaux sociaux