French expert calls for stronger real-life connections for teens

As children and teenagers spend increasing amounts of time in the virtual world, French child and adolescent psychiatrist Marie Rose Moro believes that simply limiting screen time is not enough. The greater challenge, she says, is making real life more appealing.

"The only way to counter this is to make teenagers' real lives more interesting than their virtual lives," Moro told China Daily during a recent visit to Beijing, where she attended La Nuit des idees (Night of Ideas), an event organized by the French embassy.

Sports, music, reading and time with friends can help young people build meaningful connections beyond their screens, she said. Without such bonds, teenagers risk retreating into what she calls a "false social life" online.

Moro has worked with children and adolescents for about 40 years. She is a professor at Universite Paris Cite and heads the Maison de Solenn, an adolescent health center at Cochin Hospital in Paris. This was her second visit to China, following a trip to Beijing 10 years ago for an international symposium on children's mental health. On this visit, she also visited Wuhan in Hubei province and Shanghai.

During the interview, Moro drew parallels between the challenges facing young people in China and France, particularly the pressure to excel academically. France has one of the highest rates of school refusal in Europe, she said, attributing the problem partly to an elitist education system and parents' high expectations of their children's academic performance.

Although such expectations often stem from parents' concern for their children's future, they can also become a source of anxiety for young people who struggle to meet them. Rather than pushing them toward elite universities, Moro said, it is more important to help young people find paths that match their abilities and aspirations.

She also emphasized that safeguarding young people's mental well-being is not solely the responsibility of health professionals. Families, schools and society all have a role to play. Parents, in particular, need to make time to talk with their children and lead by example in their use of digital devices.

In Moro's family, phones are kept away from the dining table. Everyone leaves their device in another room during meals and family time. "It's us adults who have to set the example, and that's not easy," she said.

Moro also sees opportunities in artificial intelligence, which could reduce the emphasis on rote memorization and make information more readily accessible to students. But she cautioned that young people still must learn to reason, think logically and evaluate information critically.