It’s that time of year again when emotions run high as classrooms fill back up with pupils. As textbooks are frantically sought, lunches hastily prepared and tearful goodbyes proffered across the country, it’s perhaps inevitable that Andrea Gilligan, host of Lunchtime Live (Newstalk, weekdays), should discuss the notion of back-to-school guilt, a concept that can best be summed up by paraphrasing the heartfelt plea of Helen Lovejoy, the pastor’s wife from The Simpsons: “Won’t somebody please think of the parents?”
On Tuesday, Gilligan talks to the journalist Kirsty Blake Knox, who chirpily describes her feelings of inadequacy at the sight of “picturesque, Instagram-ready lunch boxes” in social-media posts while she leaves school preparations until the last minute. Gilligan, in turn, wonders if her guest’s self-reproach isn’t also rooted in self-interest: “Is it about not being prepared, or is it a little bit of relief that there’s routine back in the house?”
As these exchanges suggest, it’s not the most earnest of items. Gilligan hears the broadcaster Karen Koster and the podcaster Katie Makk express joy and nervousness about their children heading off to school, but little in the way of guilt. In the end it’s all a bit generic but also oddly reassuring, as is the advice of the psychiatrist Brendan Kelly that parents should stop fretting about unrealistic social-media expectations. “Unhappiness lies down that path,” he says. “We are doing our best.”
Sometimes, however, that’s not enough. Gilligan later speaks to Niamh, a mother of two whose four-year-old son, Ollie, has complex medical needs, including cerebral palsy and epilepsy. With Ollie requiring medical equipment such as a wheelchair and a hospital bed, Niamh is seeking to move from her two-bedroom flat, where she shares a bed with her daughter. Stuck in the limbo of a Dublin City Council waiting list for housing, Niamh recounts her difficult situation matter-of-factly, though, unsurprisingly, her tone occasionally cracks: “It’s absolute torture.”
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A reliably empathetic presence, Gilligan listens intently but is essentially powerless to help beyond reaching out to the relevant authorities. “I don’t know if we can do anything,” she forlornly admits. Hearing such palpable anguish without any promise of redemption makes for an uncomfortable item, but it also highlights how Gilligan – who celebrates her 40th birthday with on-air wine and cheese on Wednesday’s programme – can move easily from light to shade, imbuing her folksy style with compassion and honesty. She certainly puts problems of Instagram lunch box envy into perspective.
As it is, parents have other problems to worry about. On Wednesday, Pat Kenny (Newstalk, weekdays) hosts a bleak discussion on the perils smartphones pose to children; the family psychotherapist Richard Hogan is particularly alarmed by the easy access to pornography on such devices. “This is hard-core, extreme material that disturbs and warps,” says Hogan. “The smartphone is in the schools, it’s in the classroom and it’s in the toilet.”
The corrosive nature of the online world is hardly news. But Hogan thinks the prevalence of mobile porn has reached a tipping point, destroying intimacy and causing isolation. “It’s ripping families apart, because people are getting stuck into it,” he says. (Kenny, ever ready with the idiosyncratic curveball, wonders whether such porn addiction can also lead to impotence.) Moreover, with Minister for Education Norma Foley seeking to ban smartphones in secondary schools, Hogan believes there has been a decisive shift in attitudes on the issue: “We need robust legislation.”
Will the Government really take on these companies?
— Matt Cooper sounds dubious about a ban on social media for children
Of course, putting the digital genie back in the bottle is easier said than done. As the psychologist Anne Kehoe remarks during the discussion, it’s probably too late to take phones off children. But as Matt Cooper hears on The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays), that won’t deter Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly, who wants to ban social-media use for under-16s. The Minister reels off a list of harmful effects linked to children using such platforms, from self-harm and suicidal ideation to eating disorders and sleep deprivation, not to mention a warped understanding of sexual behaviour. “What I want to say to social-media companies is, ‘Your product is harming children,’” says Donnelly, adding that if such digital behemoths won’t make their products safe, “we’d have no choice other than to say, ‘Then you have to restrict access.’”
It’s a sweeping proposal, but Donnelly is keen to underline the rationale behind it, repeatedly referring to the “expert group I’m setting up”. The Minister doesn’t offer many specific suggestions, though he is robustly rebutting the self-proclaimed status of Elon Musk, the X owner, as a free-speech absolutist. “This isn’t freedom of speech. This is harming children,” he says. “That’s just hatred and toxicity.”
It’s a stirring line, but one doesn’t have to be a digital corporate shill to wonder whether a blanket ban represents a bold move or a quick fix. Cooper, for one, sounds dubious. “Will the Government really take on these companies?” he asks, pointing to the enormous tax revenue they bring in.
Others aren’t convinced either, with Jack McGinn of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union suggesting that the ubiquity of social media and mobile phones could make a ban impractical. “Our aim here should be to educate and not restrict,” says McGinn, suggesting that the Government’s focus “should shift from banning phones to increasing resources”.
Then again, conglomerates selling potentially harmful products have always preferred education to restriction; as the psychiatrist Matthew Sadlier points out, “We don’t take that approach to alcohol and cigarettes”. But the ubiquity of digital devices means any proposed proscription for young people brings greater challenges than banning recreational stimulants. “You’re talking about restricting something that is part of our everyday life,” says McGinn.
As he moderates the discussion, Cooper doesn’t proffer his own opinion of any proposed ban. But in offering both sides of the argument he treats his listeners as grown-ups.
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