[Édito] The Revenge of Uncle Jules

The phone? “This rude person who sounds like a servant will never enter my house”squeaked Uncle Jules in The Glory of my Father. Notwithstanding the hostility of this pagnolesque character, the small box has established itself in everyone’s homes. When it lost its thread at the end of the 20th century, it became an essential accessory – a true generational graft screwed into the palms of adolescents.

But now Arcep, the telecoms regulator, points out an unexpected phenomenon: the smartphone is used less and less for… making calls. In ten years, the average conversation time has increased from 4 hours 38 minutes to 3 hours 15 minutes per month.

Dilute over half an hour a discussion that could be completed in five minutes

Young people now prefer to exchange “vocals”. Rather than communicating directly, Mr. completed in five minutes.

David Le Breton is worried about this “one more step in the disappearance of conversation, where we turn the other off and on as we please” (1).

“Digital society is not in the same dimension as concrete sociability, with men or women […] who talk and listen to each othert, warns the sociologist. It fragments the social bond, destroys old solidarities in favor of those, abstract, of social networks or absent correspondents.

Excessive ? Not if we consider the surveys which reveal an explosion in the feeling of loneliness among those under 25. No doubt: this brave Jules was right to be wary.

1. The end of the conversationMétailié editions (2024).