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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Health
- Irish Times
Blanket bans on smartphones are not the answer
Smartphones and social media are recurring features in the ongoing debates on declining mental health among young people. Earlier this month, the Irish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study reported nearly half of young people 'feel low' at least weekly . Invariably, any discussion on young people's mental health moves quickly to smartphones and social media, and the conclusion that the digital lives of young people are linked to a decline in their happiness. But we may be too quick to jump to conclusions on this. In truth, the evidence is limited. Links between the digital lives of children and adolescents and their mental wellbeing are often based on correlative data with few longitudinal or experimental studies. Studies don't always clearly separate how different types of smartphone or social media use affect young people, and they often don't distinguish between using a phone for learning versus mindlessly scrolling. There are likely positive and negative aspects to online activities, but sweeping conclusions and reactionary policies ignore this important nuance. A lot of the commentary around smartphone use in young people frames it as a post-pandemic problem, with increased screen time and online distractions seen as linked to lockdown-induced dependency. But this ignores digital educational policies established well before the pandemic, which encouraged the use of student-owned devices, particularly to support classroom learning. READ MORE Policy guidance laid important groundwork for the informal incorporation of smartphones into educational settings, particularly in schools where resources are tight and there isn't always access to 1:1 laptop or tablet schemes. Implementation often relied on devices students already owned – in most cases, this meant a smartphone. The increasing presence of smartphones in schools is less a byproduct of the pandemic and more a foreseeable consequence of earlier policy directions that were often reactive and technologically permissive. Media coverage of smartphone use in recent years has focused on, and often celebrated, more restrictive responses. Sweden, for example, has moved towards banning smartphones in primary classrooms, aligning with broader efforts to refocus on traditional forms of learning. Minister for Education Helen McEntee recently issued circulars requiring schools to implement a policy to restrict the use of, and access to, personal mobile phones by students for the duration of the school day at post primary level and a full ban at primary level. In 2024, the Australian government passed a new law which introduces a mandatory minimum age of 16 for accounts on some social media platforms. Controversially, parents cannot give their consent to under-16s to use these platforms, marking a new departure in terms of parents' rights. At a surface level, such actions offer clear, decisive action in the face of complex technological challenges, and resonate with public anxieties about youth wellbeing. But they're fraught with practical, human rights and ethical implications. Age verification systems can be circumvented and bans also risk pushing young users on to less-regulated platforms or creating generational disconnects in digital literacy. Blanket bans on smartphones, social media access and other digital activities overlook both the complexity of the issues and the realities of young people's lives. Restrictive policies and a one-size-fits-all approach may inadvertently exacerbate inequalities. Mobile devices and social media can serve as essential tools for safety, communication and family co-ordination, especially for older adolescents needing greater independence. Digital tools such as the language-learning app Duolingo, interactive Stem app Brilliant and online chess have opened up access to educational and enrichment opportunities that were once limited to wealthier families. These tools can give children from lower-income households a chance to learn languages, engage in advanced problem-solving, and develop critical-thinking skills. While regulatory efforts may form part of a broader digital policy toolkit, bans alone are a blunt instrument and probably ineffective. They do little to address the underlying needs that drive youth engagement with smartphones; the human desire for social connection, access to information and autonomy. So what can we do? A more effective response must be holistic: combining regulation with education, digital literacy and the co-creation of safe digital spaces that support both protection and participation. Collective action and voluntary agreements among parents of primary schoolchildren to delay children's access to smartphones can play an important role. The 'no smartphone' initiatives seen in parts of Ireland are a promising grassroots approach to addressing concerns around digital overexposure, cyberbullying and mental health. These agreements can help to reduce peer pressure and create a more uniform standard that benefits all children. Ideally, they should begin during primary school when habits and digital behaviours are still forming. Early implementation not only delays premature exposure to potentially harmful online environments, but also lays the groundwork for more responsible and mindful smartphone use in adolescence, supported by ongoing digital literacy education and parental involvement. Investment in education-based initiatives, such as the Webwise programme, can empower young people and their families to navigate the digital world safely. Safer Internet Day, which is held annually in more than 180 countries, presents a valuable opportunity to promote responsible online behaviour through schools and community engagement. Acceptable use policies, widely used across educational contexts, also present significant potential as instruments for guiding responsible smartphone and social media engagement among young people and advancing digital wellbeing. Of course we need to implement stronger regulations for the technology sector, including setting quality standards for children's content, controlling data extraction and algorithms and enforcing stricter privacy laws. But technology is part of contemporary life, and it is continuously evolving. Simply trying to ban it won't work. Policymakers must adopt a flexible approach that maximises its benefits while safeguarding young people from potential risks. Selina McCoy is professor in Sociology at the Economic and Social Research Institute and Ann Marcus-Quinn is associate professor in Technical Communication at the University of Limerick
Irish Times
10-06-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
At a time when the boom is even boomer, this statistic should mortify us
I've written before about Ireland's unknown knowns, our singular talent for wilful absent-mindedness. We have been very good at rendering invisible what is in front of our eyes. And we have not lost the knack. We're doing it now with a reality to which our history should make us especially sensitive: hunger. At the start of this century, one child in every six growing up in Ireland sometimes went to bed hungry because there was not enough food in the house. Now, when (to adopt Bertie Ahern's neologism) the boom is even boomer, this mortifying statistic has changed radically. We've managed to get it up almost to one child in every five. And for children in the poorest third of families, we're closing in on one in four. According to the comprehensive Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study published last week, 15 per cent of Irish kids in the lowest income families sometimes went to bed hungry in 2002. Twenty years later (2022 is the latest year of the analysis), that metric had risen to 24 per cent. If you missed this news, you probably shouldn't blame yourself. The HBSC report got extensive coverage for its findings on whether children were feeling 'low' or drinking alcohol, smoking dope or using condoms if they had sex. The data on hunger was largely ignored, meriting at best a glancing reference. It is not hard to understand why: it induces a kind of cognitive dissonance. It does not fit in the frame of contemporary Irish reality. READ MORE There is something viscerally shaming about the thought of a child going to bed hungry. It reeks of Oliver Twist or, closer to home, of Angela's Ashes, where 'the children slurp the porridge and complain that they didn't get enough, they're starving with the hunger'. We have confined it in public consciousness to misery lit. It is a terrain most of us visit as psychological tourists, slumming it in a dark past to make us feel better about our present state of plenty. By my count, the word 'hungry' has been used 17 times in the Dáil this year. Some of the speakers were using it metaphorically ('Our airports need to be hungry for this business …') Most of the references to human bodily hunger were, entirely justifiably, to the terrible events in Gaza . There was only one real allusion to hunger in Ireland and that was one that placed it firmly in the realm of history. Danny Healy-Rae , summoning the folk memory of his native Kerry, told the Dáil, 'I know what hunger is from my grandfather and grandmother telling me of when people were hungry here, what they went through and what they had to go through when they did not have anything to eat. They were poorer times. Gladly, that is not the case here in Ireland today. There is no one hungry like that, or there need not and should not be.' This last sentence is telling. It is entirely true that no child need or should be hungry in an Ireland awash with money. But it is all too easy to slip from saying that there is no reason for something to be happening to the assumption that it could not be happening. Yet we know it is. In 2022, a study conducted by Amárach Research for Barnardos found that 17 per cent of Irish parents, and 25 per cent of those who were not working outside the home, reported not being able to provide their children 'with a sufficiently nutritious diet, quality and quantity, which you would ideally like' . This is not about parental fecklessness: in the same study, one in five Irish parents reported skipping or skimping on their own meals so they could feed their kids. [ More parents going without to feed their children, say Barnardos Opens in new window ] The last government's Task Force on Food Poverty notes that while 'for some people food skills and a lack of access to shops or equipment play a part', the basic problem is lack of money: 'For most people, the main cause of food poverty is low income in relation to their household costs – not inability to manage money or food.' The Barnardos study also showed that many of us, even if we are not directly suffering food poverty in our own families, know children who are doing so. Asked, 'Do you have any first-hand experience of children where the impact of not having sufficient nutritious food has been evident to you?', almost one in three Irish people said they did. What they noticed in these children were bad impacts on their physical, cognitive, social and educational development. Yet there is no common public language even to name this knowledge. An official study of two areas, one in Dublin, the other in rural Ireland, for the Department of Social Protection in 2023, noted that 'food poverty, as a specific term, is not used in or by the community. Food insecurity is acknowledged but again not a common phrase in conversations'. Ironically, that report has now itself disappeared from the department's website, as has the Action Plan based on it. Under ' The Action Plan on Food Poverty and the associated research report are available ', it now says 'Item was unpublished or removed.' [ 'It's kind of become our daughter's cheat meal': The view on new hot school meals programme Opens in new window ] In spite of this apparently deliberate un-knowing, there has been some real progress in recent years. The Hot School Meals scheme has been gradually rolled out and from this year covers all primary schools. A pilot scheme to continue to provide food to these pupils during the school holidays will start this summer. But there's still a huge gap in provision for older children and young people. The stark fact is that there are students sitting Junior and Leaving Cert exams today who went to bed hungry last night. Much of this injustice could be removed almost instantly if the Government would do what it has been talking about for more than a decade: introduce a second level of child benefit targeted at those most in need. But it won't do that until we decide to know what we know.
Irish Independent
08-06-2025
- Health
- Irish Independent
The Sunday Independent's View: The Leaving Cert is the least of young people's worries
It may be worth asking whether having the eyes of the whole country fixed on them as they go through that rite of passage only adds to the pressure under which students are labouring right now. Worth asking even more is whether we would be better off as a society if half as much attention was paid to young people's struggles with mental health all year round as opposed to the Leaving Cert for those few weeks each June. A survey of young people published last week by the Irish Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) team at University College Galway made for predictably grim reading. It reported that almost 50pc of Irish children and teenagers between the ages of 10 and 17 report 'feeling low' at least once a week — a figure that has more than doubled since 1998. The outlook for girls is particularly concerning, with 57.6pc disclosing being regularly unhappy, compared to 35.2pc of boys. Data from HBSC teams around Europe tells the same story. Worryingly, nearly one in four of the young people surveyed suffer from headaches. Just under one in two experience sleep disturbances. That latter figure may have much to do with excessive screen time. The devices to which we all seem to be addicted, adults and children alike, devour our waking hours. By feeding us an unending diet of anger and negativity, they contribute to a vicious cycle of worsening mental health. The irony is that the main concern in previous decades used to centre on teenage drinking and drug abuse The younger a person gets a smartphone, the more likely they are to suffer from depression later on. The more they use them, the worse their mental health. From the climate crisis to the horrors of the war in Gaza, their minds are bombarded 24/7 with reasons to feel anxious. Not knowing if they will ever be able to afford to rent or buy their own home or earn enough to keep pace with the rising cost of living adds to that unease. The irony is that the main concern in previous decades used to centre on teenage drinking and drug abuse. As the HBSC report confirms, young people are now less likely than every previous generation to report being 'really drunk' at some point, down sharply from 33pc in 1998 to 17.8pc now. Chemical highs have merely been replaced by mental and emotional lows in a world that increasingly feels as if it is falling apart. Teenagers can be forgiven for thinking that the Leaving Cert is the least of their problems. Older generations used to envy the young. No more. Until their angst is properly recognised as a public crisis, the most vulnerable among them will continue to be left to struggle alone What can be done to ease this malaise is the real issue. Addressing the launch of the HBSC report via a pre-recorded video message last week, Fianna Fáil's Junior Public Health Minister Jennifer Murnane O'Connor acknowledged the pressures undermining children's well-being, and declared: 'We need to support equality and ensure that no young person is left behind.' ADVERTISEMENT Few would disagree with that fine, if slightly glib, sentiment. Making it happen is harder. As with housing, the mental challenges being experienced by young people need to be the focus of a resolute cross-departmental approach, encompassing every arm of government. Until their angst is properly recognised as a public crisis, the most vulnerable among them will continue to be left to struggle alone, long after the annual messages of solidarity as they sit the Leaving Cert have been forgotten.
Irish Times
04-06-2025
- General
- Irish Times
‘You're constantly compared to Instagram models': event told online content affecting teenagers' mental health
Being bombarded with bad news and 'constantly' compared to edited images of models online is having a negative impact on young people's mental health , in particular teenage girls, an event at the Department of Health was told on Tuesday. More than half of girls (57.6 per cent) and 35.2 per cent of boys reported feeling low on at least a weekly basis, according to a new report . The Irish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey monitored the health behaviours and outcomes of young people every four years between 1998 and 2022. More than 70,500 children aged 10-17 have been surveyed as part of the research, including more than 8,000 people in 2022. In 2022, 15-year-olds in Ireland were below the international HBSC average for reporting high life satisfaction (a score of 7/10 or higher). Ireland ranked 44th out of 45 countries, with 43 countries reporting a higher percentage of high life satisfaction. READ MORE Speaking at the launch of the report, 15-year-old Anna Adler said that spending so much time online is having a detrimental impact on young people's mental health. 'I have witnessed first hand its effect on young people and myself,' she said, citing a common habit of 'waking up and grabbing your phone' and scrolling through a mix of content about climate change , politics and entertainment. [ Should parents be checking their teenagers' phones? Opens in new window ] The teenager said women in particular 'have always been scrutinised' but 'with the age of the internet, you get constantly compared to edited Instagram models'. 'It's only natural that everyone, and not just women, are going to feel negative about their appearances.' She said young people are 'falling victim' to online trends, with some girls as young as nine feeling pressured to buy skincare. Prof Colette Kelly, who co-led the research at the University of Galway, said the number of those reporting feeling low is 'definitely worrying'. The survey doesn't ask children why they feel low, noted Prof Kelly, but she said young people are consuming information about war, climate change and the cost-of-living crisis . They are also dealing with the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, she added. The report also found an increase in the number of children and teenagers feeling pressured by school work (up from 32.9 per cent to 47.8 per cent between 1998 and 2022), and increases in the number of children who reported experiencing headaches (up from 26 per cent to 38.2 per cent) and sleep disturbances (30.9 per cent up to 46.3 per cent). The research found the proportion of young people smoking, drinking and using cannabis had reduced in recent years. There has been a small decrease in the proportion of 15- to 17-year-olds who have had sex. One in five teenagers (19.6 per cent) who took part in the survey in 2022 said they had already engaged in sexual intercourse, compared with a quarter (25.5 per cent) in 2010. Of those who reported having sex, there was a decrease in the proportion who reported using a condom the last time they had sex. In 2010, 78 per cent said they used a condom, compared with 55.2 per cent in 2022. [ Opinion: Social media has a limited effect on teenage mental health Opens in new window ] Older teenagers were asked certain questions about their sexual habits as part of the research. The authors of the Irish study have noted that the data in the most recent report relates to condom use only and not that of other contraceptives. The figures in the 2022 report were collected in the first half of that year, before the launch of the Free Contraception Scheme, for which 17-year-olds are eligible. The HBSC is an international study carried out in 51 participating countries and regions in collaboration with the World Health Organisation.
Irish Times
03-06-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Almost 50% of children and teenagers struggling with ‘feeling low'
There has been a large increase in the proportion of children in the Republic who report feeling low at least every week, according to fresh research. A report published on Tuesday found that almost half of children and teenagers (46.3 per cent) reported 'feeling low' on at least a weekly basis in 2022, up from 23 per cent in 1998. Girls were more likely to report feeling low than boys: 57.6 per cent compared with 35.2 per cent. The Irish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey monitored the health behaviours and outcomes of young people every four years between 1998 and 2022. Those surveyed ranged in age from 10 to 17. READ MORE The report found a decrease in the proportion of young people happy with life at present (down from 88.1 per cent to 78.5 per cent) and in those reporting a high level of life satisfaction (down from 76 per cent to 61.6 per cent). The latest report also found an increase in the number of children and teens feeling pressured by school work (up from 32.9 per cent to 47.8 per cent), and increases in the number of children who reported experiencing headaches (up from 26 per cent to 38.2 per cent) and sleep disturbances (30.9 per cent up to 46.3 per cent). There was a small increase in the proportion of those who reported going to school or bed hungry because there was not enough food at home: up from 16.6 per cent in 2002 to 18.3 per cent in 2022. Prof Colette Kelly, who co-led the research at the University of Galway , said the number of those reporting feeling low is 'definitely worrying'. The survey doesn't ask children why they feel low, noted Prof Kelly, but she said young people are consuming information about war, climate change and the cost-of-living crisis. They are also dealing with the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, she added. There was a small increase in the proportion of those who reported being bullied at school once or more in the past couple of months: up from 24.6 per cent in 1998 to 28.6 per cent in 2022. The number of girls who reported being bullied increased from 19.6 per cent to 29.5 per cent during the same period, while the number of boys who reported being bullied decreased slightly from 29.2 per cent to 27.7 per cent. The proportions of young people smoking, drinking and using cannabis have reduced significantly in recent years. The number of children who reported ever being 'really drunk' decreased from 33 per cent in 1998 to 17.8 per cent in 2022. There was also a moderate reduction in the proportion of children and teenagers who reported cannabis use in the last 12 months: down from 12.3 per cent in 1998 to 6.5 per cent in 2022. The research also found that smoking rates reduced from 22.6 per cent to 4.7 per cent in the same period. Minister of State for Public Health Jennifer Murnane O'Connor was not present at the launch but spoke via a pre-recorded video message. 'The good news is that we are seeing a significant long-term decline in the use of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis in young people. Compared to 1998, today's young people are less likely to smoke, drink regularly or experiment with drugs,' said Ms Murnane O'Connor. The junior minister added that the report highlights ongoing challenges, particularly in mental health and social inequality. 'Many adolescents continue to report pressure at school, bullying, sleep difficulties, and going to bed hungry. While substance use is declining, disparities remain, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds or marginalised communities,' she said. 'We need to support equality and ensure that no young person is left behind.'
