Working in digital marketing, and running my own company, often makes it difficult to separate work from family. When I was little, I helped prepare things in my grandmother's shop, and this family business was a place where everyone could contribute, even a child, no matter how small.

Tim Berners-Lee, one of the creators of the internet, has complained about the massive use of addictive algorithms on social media: he would ban social networks and phones for anyone under 16.

I read in the NOW The conclusions of the latest Youth and Gender Barometer. It asks about partner control, and here, of course, the device called mobilewhich is the center of modern relationships. We meet because we start following each other on Instagram and break up via WhatsApp. If we look at the figures, 32% of young women say their partner has gotten angry because they didn't immediately answer messages or calls, compared to 17.5% of young men. It makes me laugh that it's emphasized that it's young women. Older women can go six months without replying, and their partner won't even notice. But here's the thing: 27% of women say they've checked their partner's phone, compared to 17% of men. 26.6% of women have told their partner who they can and can't talk to, compared to 17% of men.

France's battle to keep children and teenagers away from screens and social media has taken another step forward. The National Assembly passed a law at midnight prohibiting access to social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram for those under fifteen, and banning mobile phone use in schools. The law must now go to the Senate for final approval, but President Emmanuel Macron has requested expedited processing so that it can be definitively approved within a few weeks and take effect on September 1st. "Because our children's brains are not for sale. Not on American platforms, not on Chinese networks. Because their dreams cannot and should not be dictated by algorithms," Macron stated in a message to X.

On January 26th, a century ago, John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer, gave the first public demonstration of television in London before members of the Royal Institution. He had built the device himself, based on a previous invention, the Nipkow disk, created in 1884 by the German Paul Nipkow. A reproduction of John Logie Baird's device can be seen at the Science Museum in London. It had low resolution and the image was small, not much larger than a modern mobile phone screen. In terms of size, in some ways, we've gone back to the beginning.

They all arrive at daycare by car, driven by their father, mother, sometimes grandparent, or sometimes another parent. All of them, securely strapped into their car seats, carry beloved toys and often a bottle or juice they sip through a straw. On the back of the passenger seat, they have a holder for their mobile phone or tablet. During the journey, they watch cartoons. When the broadcast stops because there's no signal, they let someone know. And when an advertisement comes on, they babble, "Announcement," because they know their parents have the power, from the seat in front, to reach out and skip it. Those who travel by subway or bus hold a tablet or their mother's mobile phone in their little hands and also watch cartoons and also let someone know when the broadcast stops, for example, because they're going through a tunnel with no signal. And then the mothers or fathers or the babysitter who brings them explain, in a pedagogical way, that "There's no signal" and that the cartoons will be back on shortly. And sometimes, they babble: "...chura," which means "no signal" in children's language.

A pioneering study in Spain has just shed light on how children and teenagers use mobile phones and the digital environment. One of the findings highlighting the excessive and premature use of mobile phones by teenagers is that eight out of ten fifth-grade students say they already use social media—and among young people between 10 and 20 years old, this figure is almost universal (92.5%). The study, published this Tuesday and conducted by UNICEF in collaboration with the Ministry for Digital Transformation, Red.es, the University of Santiago de Compostela, and the Council of Computer Engineering, surveyed 100,000 young people across Spain to understand the extent to which an entire generation uses screens and the internet. The large-scale survey reveals that eight out of ten students get their first mobile phone at age 11, and that nine out of ten secondary school students own a mobile phone.

Today I would like to talk to you about something that has been observed for some time and that, slowly, has been sneaking in through the back door until it has settled into our lives.