Seine-Port is introducing restrictions on phone use in streets, shops and parks – but young people say there’s little else to do

Fighting the smartphone ‘invasion’: the French village that voted to ban scrolling in public

Seine-Port is introducing restrictions on phone use in streets, shops and parks – but young people say there’s little else to do Angelique Chrisafis Angelique Chrisafis in Seine-Port @achrisafis Sat 10 Feb 2024 05.00 GMT

A picture of a smartphone with a red line through it serves as a warning in the window of a hairdresser’s shop in a French village that has voted to ban people scrolling on their phones in public. “Everyone is struggling with too much screen time,” said Ludivine, a cardiology nurse, as she had her hair cut into a bob, leaving her phone out of sight in her bag. “I voted in favour, this could be a solution.”

Seine-Port, in the Seine-et-Marne area south of Paris, with a population of fewer than 2,000 people, last weekend voted yes in a referendum to restrict smartphone use in public, banning adults and children from scrolling on their devices while walking down the street, while sitting with others on a park bench, while in shops, cafes or eating in restaurants and while parents wait for their children in front of the school gates. Those who might check their phone’s map when lost are instead being encouraged to ask for directions.

  • JeenaEnglish
    -4•9 months ago

    Are you saying only young people are addicted to screens?

    • Dadd VolanteEnglish
      8•9 months ago

      That was never said nor implied. What you’re doing is putting the words you want to hear in someone’s mouth.

      Don’t. It’s intellectually irresponsible.

      They’re saying it’s old people making a bigger deal out of scrolling in general.

      Younger people grew up with it, it isn’t something new that they don’t understand.

      It’s the old farts like me who blame the phones for the state of things, kinda like how it was videogames, rock and rap music before.

      Lots of yellin at clouds

    • @TheGrandNagusEnglish
      7•9 months ago

      No, that’s not what I’m saying, and I don’t know how you could have come to that conclusion.

      Nor was I saying that back when people were calling to ban them, that only young people read books or cycled.

      But it’s all stuff that older people perceived young people to be obsessed with, and thus wanted to clamp down on it as a punishment/because they viewed it as being wrong.