We often point fingers at TikTok and social media… but who else is forcing our children to be connected? School, with online homework & stuff.

TikTok (on top of the specific toxicity of its algorithm) highlighted once again: screen time, addictive content, algorithms designed to capture attention… everything is built to keep our kids hooked on practices they can’t really control.
And TikTok isn’t the only problem—other platforms can be just as transgressive for teenagers (sometimes more).

With social media, the risks are obvious.

But if we widen the lens: what about school?

• Digital gradebooks, homework posted online, YouTube videos assigned as resources.

• The gradual removal of paper notebooks and traditional planners, replaced by platforms often poorly designed and unevenly accessible.

The result? Parents must allow Internet access “for school,” blurring the line between academic use and distraction. Parental controls become almost impossible to enforce—not always because of laxity or lack of good will, but because the boundaries are structurally blurred.

All of this is done in the name of “simplification” and “modernization.”

Yet research shows that digitizing learning does not improve results—and in some cases even makes them worse, especially when there’s no strong pedagogical support behind it.

In trying to “streamline” organization, are we not simply creating new problems—problems we then attempt to control through regulations, filters, and bans?

There are countless platforms with harmful, normative effects.

Even Netflix is not harmless for a 13-year-old who stumbles on Adolescence and binge-watches it on a Wednesday afternoon without adult guidance. (If you haven’t read my earlier post on this, I invite you to take a look.)

Screens are a real puzzle for parents. Without a unified way of thinking about this issue, without practical responses to the everyday challenges parents face, and without a shared parental ethic regarding screens, respected by everyone, we’ll never see the end of it.