GAFAM, Youth Mental Health and EdTech: Between Informational Rivalry and Educational Responsibility

The GAFAM companies are seeking to strengthen their presence in the education sector, particularly through initiatives related to young people’s mental health. These actions, although presented as altruistic, are part of a broader strategy of informational conquest and the consolidation of their influence over future generations.

A Growing GAFAM Presence in Education

The GAFAMs are multiplying partnerships with educational institutions and training programs, such as Jeunes citoyens du numérique via Unis-Cité, in order to integrate their tools and services into schools. Facebook, for instance, has launched awareness campaigns on the “positive uses” of social media in schools and is collaborating with Pôle emploi to train 50,000 job seekers in digital skills.
Beyond these isolated initiatives, the GAFAMs are building an ecosystem in which pedagogical tools, collaboration platforms, and cloud services are becoming ubiquitous in the learning process. Google Workspace for Education, Microsoft Teams, and Apple’s iPads have become standard in many classrooms. This massive rollout raises concerns about the dependence of education systems on international private actors.

Growing Concerns Over Youth Mental Health

Alongside their expansion in education, the GAFAMs are increasingly communicating their involvement in digital well-being. Yet recent studies, such as Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, highlight the negative effects of prolonged exposure to screens and social media: increased anxiety, sleep disorders, social isolation. The WHO also warns of the impact of technology on adolescents’ cognitive and emotional development.
In response to these concerns, the European Commission is tightening controls and calling for greater transparency. The Digital Services Act imposes content moderation and minor protection obligations on platforms—but the core question remains: can GAFAMs be both judge and jury when it comes to regulating their own tools?

EdTech and the Burden of Educational Responsibility

In this context, EdTech players have a crucial role to play. Unlike GAFAMs, their primary mission is (or should be) to support skill development and learner well-being. This means designing educational tools that avoid attention-grabbing mechanisms, promote autonomy, and respect users’ privacy.
The development of a sovereign, ethical, and European EdTech sector is now a necessity. It can be grounded in user-centered design principles, open governance, and partnerships with research institutions to properly assess the real impact of tools on mental health and learning.

Conclusion: What Ethics for Tomorrow’s EdTech?

The growing presence of GAFAM in education, under the guise of caring about youth mental health, raises major issues of digital sovereignty and educational responsibility. It is imperative that EdTech actors actively commit to offering solutions that respect student well-being, based on pedagogical values rather than data exploitation.
At its core, the key question is this: should digital education be steered by those who own the infrastructure, or by those who uphold a societal vision of learning? This choice of model will shape the citizens of tomorrow.