Do you know what your child is up to online? I mean really up to. The ins and out of day to day conversations, and the typical interactions? The chats with friends and the games played with pals online.
The things that seem pretty harmless, right?
Or maybe you’re struggling instead, like many parents, to keep on top of everchanging platforms, new games and fads that capture children’s attention wholly and intensely, and give you five minutes peace?
Five minutes of much-needed peace, that often ends up stretching well beyond that, because life is hectic and chaotic, and you’re certain you recognise the little voices you’re hearing, as they play online, as classmates anyway. So how much mischief can they really be getting into?
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How much harm can come their way?
There’s lots of talk of social media bans for children under 16 from our politicians at the moment. Though the goalposts keep moving. Talk of it is enough to offer many parents comfort, even if what the walk of it will look like remains to be seen.
But is that potentially where a further danger lies? If we’re all waiting for the Government to do something, or believe they’re really going to within a short space of time, is there a chance parents will take their eye off the ball.
Even if an Irish social media ban, similar to that in Australia, was to happen in the short-term (and let’s be honest, our digital native children will work out how to get around this far more quickly than their digital dinosaur parents) might we believe that all is sorted, as forbidden conversations get driven underground? Because for now, they’re largely in plain sight and still we’re forgetting to look.
According to research published by CyberSafeKids last week “51 per cent of children have no parental restrictions around online contact such as chatting and gaming with people they don’t know, exposing them to risks of engaging with strangers”.
The same research suggested 69 per cent of eight to 12-year-olds have “at least one account on a social media platform with a legal age rating of 13+”. Less than half of the parents surveyed (47 per cent) used parental controls, while a quarter conceded they were not at all familiar with and didn’t understand the apps and games their children use.
While most parents said they had rules and limits around screen time use, almost half admitted they weren’t always enforced.
Young children have access to God knows what, but perhaps even more worrying, God knows who has access to young children.
It’s hard for parents to strike a balance. Not only are they trying to parent in a digital world they may not fully understand, but there’s also the desire to respect privacy beyond the primary school years. It’s like reading a personal diary, some have equated it to. Except it’s absolutely not – it’s about trying our best to keep young people safe. It’s not only about the people they speak to online, it’s about the content they consume, and the messages they unwittingly absorb.
“I was shocked by the messages from my 14-year-old’s best friend,” one parent told me on checking her child’s account. Another discovered some of the children in her child’s secondary school class group were “freely using” some terms about unwanted sexual activity about others.
“I discovered my son was being repeatedly added into [Snapchat] chats so they could all pick on him,” a parent explained. While another shared how she discovered that her 11-year-old son was advised how to self-harm after he posted some of his artwork.
Others shared stories of sexually explicit WhatsApp messages, and seemingly innocent cartoon videos for younger children that encouraged the watcher to decide how the character should kill themselves. All uncovered by checking devices.
How many of us can be certain our children aren’t followed by people they don’t know in real life? Or aren’t following accounts peddling problematic and harmful messaging?
Can we be sure we’re following our children’s real accounts and not a cuddly decoy one they want us to think is theirs? Such is the minefield, that teenage buy-in will ultimately be essential for their own protection.
To ban or not to ban, who knows if it will work, when the would-be banned group is infinitely more skilled in the area than the would-be banners. But doing nothing isn’t an option either. We need to hold the social media platforms to account. And we need to need to protect our children and teenagers.
A ban won’t remove the need to keep a watchful eye on what’s happening online, or to keep the lines of communication around online activity open.
And it won’t remove the need for parents to try to understand how these platforms operate, whether we want to or not.
