Children and mobile phone illustration -

RAPHAEL BLOCH / SIPA

  • The average age of the first smartphone in France has increased to 11 years.

  • MyTwiga is not a parental control application, but offers a whole educational path around digital education.

  • “The idea is not to moralize, explains its designer, but to give the keys so that the teenager can act accordingly.

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Your youngest has just returned to college, is already pressuring you to have a smartphone?

Don't panic, it's normal.

“The average age in France for the first smartphone has fallen to 11 years, against 11 and a half years last year.

This means that generally in sixth grade, children have their phone, and it even starts in elementary school for some.

We can hold on until fifth, but then it's over, ”summarizes Arnaud Gheysens.

To support the arrival of the first smartphone in the hands of young teenagers, and to prepare for the digital world which will suddenly open up to them, this Bordeaux resident, an engineer by training, has joined forces with the Atelier des parents, specializing in positive education, to launch an application, MyTwiga, intended for adolescents and parents alike.

“It's a project that brought together digital and adolescent experts to find solutions when the first mobile phone arrives, when, as a parent, we are generally a little helpless,” he says.

We have to face all at once both adolescence and digital education.

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"We realized that the" digital natives "were ignorant of the digital"

MyTwiga is not just a simple parental control app.

You can obviously determine the time that your child will be able to spend on the internet, “but we have above all tried to provide educational tools, which will allow adolescents to complete a digital learning path, and parents to develop skills on the Internet. digital.

»Thirteen themes are proposed, and the child can gain autonomy in the use of his phone, as he progresses in this course, and in the understanding of these areas.

“The topics covered range from time management, to the protection of one's privacy, to the functioning of social networks, including the verification of information.

We tackle a lot of subjects, including the basics of digital culture, because we have realized that "digital natives" are ignorant of digital.

For example, you have to explain to them that when a photo is sent from one laptop to another, it goes through servers, that this information is kept somewhere, and that it can potentially be used.

The idea is not to moralize, but to give the keys so that the teenager can act accordingly.

"

"We understand parents who are afraid, but they must stop being negative"

The psychologist Nadège Larcher, specialist in the development of children and adolescents, and co-founder of the Atelier des parents, insists for her part on the right way to approach the screens with her children.

“We have to be interested in what our teenagers watch, not tell them that their YouTubers are lame or stupid - which is not true - but ask them why they watch that.

We understand parents who are afraid, but they have to stop being negative, otherwise teens will not hear them.

"

“What can be scary as a parent, continues Arnaud Gheysens, is to think that we are giving a tool that we ourselves do not master, to a child who will have access to a digital world in which we no longer exist.

And often, the reflex is to block everything, except that the teenager will end up bypassing these locks, so it is better to make sure that he masters his digital autonomy.

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Thaïs claims to be "careful not to give too much personal information"

At the same time, the app regularly sends notifications to parents, especially when the teenager wants to install a new interface, with the regulations in force concerning it.

Séverine Cavailles, mother of four teenagers who participated in the test phase of MyTwiga, says that during confinement her 15-year-old son downloaded Houseparty.

“I immediately received a notification to explain to me what was behind it, how this app could market certain data.

We were thus able to prevent him from paying attention to what he would share on this platform.

"

Thaïs, 12, who has also tested the app, assures us that he is now “more careful on the internet”, and to be “careful not to give too much personal information.

She adopted the tool, although she initially "didn't want to hear" from a monitoring app on her phone.

"A little scared of what social networks can entail in teens"

Laure, mother of a 12-year-old teenager, says for her part that she needed to be "supported" because she was "a little afraid of what social networks can entail in teenagers, especially harassment.

"" I needed to reassure myself, because I was afraid that my daughter would be in danger.

And what I liked is the educational aspect, I learned in particular that there are ages to download such and such an app.

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Our dossier on cyberbullying

The topic of cyberbullying is obviously widely discussed on MyTwiga.

"Harassment, we all face it at some point in our life, as a witness, harasser, harassed, assures Arnaud Gheysens ... We try to identify the elements that install harassment, and we have also created a button of alert that puts the adolescent in touch with a Bordeaux association called Caméléon, based on the care of adolescents in difficulty.

"The president of this association, Marion Haza, clinical psychologist specializing in adolescents and digital technology, explains that" the greatest difficulty for adolescents faced with harassment is first of all to recognize that they are indeed victims, then to chat with someone, even their parents.

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"In primary school, a child above all needs direct relationships"

There remains the crucial question of the age at which we can entrust a smartphone to a child.

Is 11 years old still too early?

After the sixth, it becomes more and more difficult to resist social pressure, analyze the specialists, who believe on the other hand that nothing justifies that he has one before.

“Even if there are often very good arguments, especially among separated parents, to justify giving a phone to a child in primary school, we must realize that at this age children are not yet in the relational capacity of deal with it all.

In primary school, a child above all needs direct relationships, to benefit from the people with whom he is at the moment, in games, in activities… ”insists Marion Haza.

However, we will have to hang on, when we know that in the United States, the average age of the first telephone would have fallen… below the ten-year mark, according to studies.

The monthly subscription to the MyTwiga application is offered at € 4.90 per month as an introductory offer, then will increase to € 7.90.

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  • Aquitaine

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  • Bordeaux

  • Smartphone

  • Teenager

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