'Children’s health has been affected': Longford TD supports stronger social media rules for kids

LONGFORD TD Micheál Carrigy is seeking to bring primary schools together to establish a phone-free culture for children, as he welcomed proposed EU restrictions on social media use.

Deputy Carrigy said he had previously sought to introduce similar measures in Ireland, arguing that children’s safety and health should take priority over the commercial interests of social media companies.

“I feel there’s a lot of danger out there in social media. There are positive things, but there is a lot of danger and misinformation and lies,” he explained.

“I think our children’s health has been affected by it. I think they’re safer at a younger age away from it and protections put in place and put strong regulation on those social media companies,” commented Deputy Carrigy.

“The priority has to be our children’s safety and our children’s health so from that point of view, I think it’s long overdue. I welcome it.”

He added that parents also have a role to play in limiting children’s access to social media, acknowledging that handing a phone to a child could often be the “easy option.”

Deputy Carrigy is working to bring primary schools together to explore the possibility of establishing a phone-free culture among younger children.

“I’d actually like to see a situation… where we’d have a phone-free culture at that age level for children,” he said.

“That no children in our primary school system would have a mobile phone and wouldn’t have access to any of these accounts. I think that’s where we need to get to.”

Deputy Carrigy said he met with a group of schools in Wicklow which had adopted a similar approach, claiming that 14 schools had come together to create an environment where children did not have phones.

He said he had been told of benefits including reduced anxiety, children spending more time playing and improvements in schoolwork.

Larry Carolan, Head of ICT at Longford and Westmeath Education and Training Board (LWETB) added: "Schools have been working hard to find the right balance when it comes to smartphone use during the school day. While smartphones provide important ways for students and parents to stay connected, they can also create significant distractions that impact learning, concentration and wellbeing.”

LWETB has become the first education provider in Ireland to participate in a new pilot initiative to help Irish second-level schools reduce smartphone distraction.

Campaign Ambassador and former Ireland rugby captain Johnny Sexton commented: “Technology plays an important role in how young people learn, communicate and stay connected, but they also need time to move, play, compete, talk and have fun together.

"If we can help young people build positive habits around technology while also encouraging them to be active and connected to the world around them, that can only be a positive thing for their physical and mental wellbeing.”

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has signalled a set of EU-wide underage social media restrictions, including an under-13s age ban and parental permission obligations and feature restrictions for anyone aged 13 to 15 years.

She announced the upcoming 'EU Kids Act' in her annual State of the European Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, attracting widespread attention.

President von der Leyen stated: “I am aware that many perceive the power of big tech as overwhelming. And impossible to roll back. I disagree. We do not have to accept addictive features. We do not have to accept children being drawn into ever more extreme content. We do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI-generated sexualised images.

"Platforms will have to prove to us that they are safe. Because it is not about our minors accessing social media. It is about when and how do we allow social media to access minors.

President von der Leyen continued: “Young Europeans now spend four to six hours per day on screens. Children are pulled ever deeper into feeds designed to keep them scrolling.

“What we are witnessing is a great capture of our children. A capture of their attention, their focus, their minds. This is depriving children of their childhood… when a child has a smartphone, all of this is taken away.”

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