How do you legislate for young minds in a digital world?

D9+ ministers meet in Luxembourg

Earlier this month, Luxembourg hosted the D9+ Ministerial meeting. The D9 stood for the 9 most digitally advanced countries of Europe. The plus part means some more have been added on since then (UK left due to Brexit, even though it was a major player initially). Guess which 13 countries these are...

The two topics discussed were:

• Sovereignty and simplification as drivers for European competitiveness

• Providing a safe environment for children and minors online

I won't spend much time reflecting on point number one, as it's an obvious one, which means Europe has to step up, work with trusted international partners (how long can you trust someone for, and what are the get out mechanisms?) and make the 'Single Market' work more fluidly. This section was informed by members of the B9+ (business) and S9+ (start-ups).

I will just say that I was impressed by Liisa Pakosta, Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs in Estonia. She told me that Estonia is now using AI to make legal decisions, but you can see the entire back-trail of information those decisions were made on.

It's point number 2 which had me thinking much more. We were given a terrific presentation by Prof. Dr. Jörg M. Fegert, [Child & Adolescent psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine & Psychotherapy, University of Ulm] and Maria Melchior [Director of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM)], who are the co-chairs of the Special Panel on child safety online, appointed by the President of the European Commission.

This was followed by Prof. Mark Cole, from University of Luxembourg, who spoke about the legal aspects of this. Prof. Fegert's talk, especially, has stayed with me as I have two teenage daughters who have been the guinea pig generation of social media.

He showed us the graphs of how male and female teenage minds develop, the psychological vulnerability in girls compared to boys (much higher for girls), the level of peer influence, digital exposure and complexity and the complete drop in parental moderation from the age of about 10-12. Since parents lose 'control' of their children at this age, peer influence and protective guardrails are important.

Why? Well his graph on the onset of mental disorders explains why. If we don't act fast on how to 'control' digital influences on developing teenage brains, it might coincide negatively with various mood disorders, eating disorders and substance abuse, OCD, anxiety, and more. It's not just social media now of course, it's also AI.

We cannot remove the digital world from our lives, and indeed there are many positives with it. But we need to find a net to help the next generations develop in the safest way possible for their brain development. I have put some of Prof. Fegert's slides at the top of the photos below, because I think they are infinitely more important than the important people in the room. However, we rely on these people to help steer legislation through this maze.

The event took place in Belval, historic location of the ArcelorMittal steel factory, now home to the University of Luxembourg.