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.
So people who use their phone to communicate like deaf, blind, and/or nonverbal people or those who don’t speak the language and use it to translate, as well as those who need it to help ease anxiety or as a barrier between themselves and an overwhelming world (in other words - disabled and other marginalised people), can go fuck themselves, can they?
Oh wait, don’t tell me, “if there arises a need an exception will be made”, which is basically saying disabled and other marginalised people can go fuck themselves, unless they are willing to be stopped, forced to disclose their personal and/or medical information to strangers and be scrutinised on the spot by people without any training with the potential of being punished if said laypeople decide that actually they don’t see good reason for the phone use…
Like, even without all of this the idea is a pathetic joke being enforced by power hungry control freaks, but the fact that they’re happy to so openly punish and exclude marginalised people (who might stay home rather than face a world where they can’t communicate, or where they might get constantly stopped and scrutinised for doing so) is just disgusting.
Fuck these people.