Imposing a ban on children accessing social media platforms creates a risk of them being pushed towards “unregulated spaces”, an Oireachtas committee as heard.
Catherine Cross, of the National Parents Council, described the introduction of bans on young people accessing social media as “a blunt instrument.”
“You’re banning the end user and putting responsibility on carers or parents of end users ... not the platforms,” she said.
“If we ban, we are risking then that our children and young people are going to go to unregulated spaces, they’ll find ways around it.”
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It emerged this week that Ireland will not in the short-term follow other countries in passing laws banning social media use by children, even as other European Union member states advance their own plans for age limits.
Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan said he would bring forward online child safety measures “incrementally” and he talked down proposals being brought forward by other countries as laws that children could “potentially” get around.
The Joint Committee on Children and Equality met on Thursday to discuss the safety and wellbeing of children online with representatives from a number of organisations.
Barnardos Ireland chief executive Suzanne Connolly said there had been a “significant shift” as there are no longer separate online and offline worlds.
“Children and young people in some ways have never been more informed and in other ways never more vulnerable,” she added.
Mark Smyth, of the Psychological Society of Ireland, described social media and gaming as “a magnifier, a multiplier in risk of mental health but not the only risk”.
He said parents and families need to ask themselves how they can help create a better connections with their children so they do not need to use chatbots or Artificial Intelligence (AI) to find these.
James O’Higgins Norman, director of the Dublin City University anti-bullying centre, said children have more freedom online than in the real world and it “might be time to revisit that”.
Speaking about social media platform X’s AI system Grok, he said its “nudification” tool “mustn’t have went through anybody who was concerned about safety”.
“Nothing should go out unless it has gone through a level of safety requirements that are set externally by the state or the European Union,” he said.
In his opening statement, O’Higgins Norman said “measures such as smartphone or social media bans are often introduced without meaningful consultation ... there is currently poor evidence that such bans improve mental wellbeing or reduce harm.”
Barnardos said its online safety programme, which started in 2014, has reached more than 100,000 children in more than 1,000 schools. The charity’s report on cyberbullying found that 53 per cent of children aged eight to 12 had been cyberbullied, 62 per cent had seen others being targeted and 60 per cent of children said they would not tell their parents if cyberbullying occurred.
