Perceptions and Analysis of Digital Risks

7MIL as a Tool for Teachers to Prevent Risk and Transmit Digital Culture

7.1. Studying digital technology in schools from the perspective of teachers’ representations

Children are exposed to screens at increasingly younger ages as the number of household devices, such as tablets and laptops, continues to increase. Despite the recommendations of child psychiatrist Serge Tisseron (2018), who advocates a ban on screens before the age of three years and the measured use of digital technologies from the first grade, in line with the recommendations of the Académie des sciences (Tisseron 2013), we note that some children now have strong digital skills before entering middle school, or even from kindergarten, be it discussion in forums dedicated to the game Fortnite, children youtubers, watching videos suggested by a recommendation algorithm or children’s choreography on Tik Tok. Cordier’s work (2015) on adolescents sheds light on the complexity of their uses and their specific strategies for finding information, while pointing out that students do not feel they are digital experts even though they use these technologies daily. Parents and teachers are aware of the digital risks, but they do not master the mechanics of these often-solitary uses: access to pornography and violent images, child pornography networks, cyber harassment, health risks and so on. The digital world is seen as an uncertain and dangerous space where worrying practices reign, such as the mass digital surveillance ...