Serge Tisseron

In 2013, he promoted a web site with the General Secretariat of Catholic Education to explain parents and children how to "tame" screens. It highlights his "3-6-9-12" rule.

On 6 November 2013 Serge Tisseron received an "Award for outstanding Achievement" from the FOSI (Family Online Safety Institute) for his work on teenagers and internet, and especially for the "3-6-9-12" campaign he launched.

In 2008, he developed the "3-6-9-12" rule, referring to no screen time before three years old, no game console before six years old, no accompanied Internet before nine years old, no solo Internet before eleven years old, and no social media before twelve. Since 2011, the rule has been publicized by the Association Française Pédiatrie Ambulatoire (AFPA). According to Tisseron, he began the "3-6-9-12" campaign in order to generate a public debate around screens. In his view children have to learn proper use of such tools. Tisseron suggested that we think about introducing digital spaces into therapy. The Internet represents a new way of transmitting information by way of horizontal communication. According to Tisseron, children benefit from sharing screens more than from using them individually. He claimed that new technologies feed the collective intelligence.

Also in 2008, he founded the Institute of the History and Memory of Disasters (IHMEC). Iits objective is to contribute to a memory and a "culture" of risk through the establishment of a bank of evidence to support the resilience of present and future generations.

In 2008, Tisseron published an updated version of "Camera Lucida" by Roland Barthes, "Les mystères de la chambre claire". In this book, Tisseron questioned the commonplace of photography and adds the concept of digital picture. He analyzes the relationship between a man and a picture from a psychological point of view. Tisseron said, opposing Barthes: The picture isn't only a nostalgia from the past, a picture is the result of two different moves : stopping time for the representation and following the motion of the world.

On October 18, 2007, he launched a petition to prohibit children under three years old from watching television. This resulted in new restrictions on broadcasts aimed at babies and toddlers. In November 2008, the French Ministry of Health mandated that all such programs must display a warning.

Between 2005 and 2008, he developed an activity aiming to improve children's empathic skills in kindergarten. He called it the "Three Figures game", in reference to the three characters featuring in most children's games and scenarios: the perpetrator, the victim and the vindicator. "Three Figures", practiced by teachers themselves after a three-day training, represents five of the six goals in kindergarten: appropriating language, learning the rules of living together, acting and body language, developing imagination and preparing to write. It is also a form of pre-education in imagery and training in how to pretend. At the same time it aims to reduce violence by increasing the capacity for empathy. Tisseron was charged by several academies to educate trainers on the technique.

He has written approximately forty books, including instructive works for parents, that were translated into several languages. His simple and precise writing style helped his books to reach best seller status. In 2001, he was awarded the Prix du livre de Télévision. In 2002, the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences awarded him its Stassart prize,Professor Serge Tisseron was recently awarded in Paris the Nafsaniyoun Award given by the Lebanese center of psychological and social sciences known as Nafsaniyoun for his life achievements especially his researches on new technology and its effects.

Tisseron says that home screens can dangerously isolate users. He worked on a project called «Dizaine pour apprivoiser les écrans» that was inspired by the Student Media Awareness to Reduce Television program in 1996-1997 by Robinson's team in California. It attempted to increase children's awareness and control over their screen time. It proposed that over ten days or a week, kids be invited to choose their favorite TV programs and video games and give up all others. Meanwhile, parents and instructors organize and lead other activities including focusing on photography and world building to encourage them to develop their own imagination.

Tisseron did not feel at ease studying psychiatry, as he felt that the other students were too arrogant. During his second year, he switched to psychology and moved to Paris to write his medical thesis. Tisseron practiced medicine in a hospital from 1978 to 1997, founding its mobile palliative care unit in 1990. After this time he taught psychology at University of Paris.

Tisseron delivered his thesis in the form of a comic-strip, denouncing what he considered to be that era's "medical sadism". He defended his thesis at Claude Bernard University in Lyon, in 1975. The 48-page work is titled Contribution à l'introduction de la bande dessinée dans la pédagogie universitaire. Une tentative sur l'histoire de la psychiatrie. The work was dedicated to the history of psychiatry and was inspired by three different sources : "L’histoire de la folie" (Madness and Civilization) by Michel Foucault; the works of Thomas Szasz; and his own research at the library of Saint-Anne's hospital. Another aim of his thesis was to demonstrate that images are part of the world's symbolism as much as written and spoken languages.

Serge Tisseron (born 8 March 1948 in Valence, France) is a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. He holds a PhD in Psychology. He is a senior research fellow at University Paris VII Denis Diderot. He is a member of Centre of Psychoanalysis Research, Medicine and Society at Université Paris VII (CRPMS). He studies the relationships between youth, the media and images and the effect of information and communication technology on young people. He is also an illustrator and a photographer.