A lot happened during summer recess: France's constitutional council struck down the core of a new law to ban social media for under-15s, but it did validate the extension to high schoolers of a phone ban already in effect for younger pupils. Why one but not the other? On the first day of school across this country and others, we size up what's best for future citizens, parents and teachers, all grappling in this age of distraction with the lure of screens.
Over in the US last week, state attorneys general succeeded where legislators have not, forcing the parent group of Instagram and Facebook to put curbs on screen time for teens. Meta opted to settle for $17 billion rather than face the prospect of its boss Mark Zuckerberg answering questions under oath about encouraging addiction to his products. But social media is just one challenge. Teaching, homework and grading is increasingly happening in the virtual world. What's the impact on humanity’s ability to hone its reading, writing and arithmetic skills, and to learn critical thinking? How to learn and to clear enough mind space to reflect? It's quite the learning curve for all of us. Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Juliette Brown, Charles Wente.
