A MAJORITY OF children and just under half of parents and caregivers say it would be better would be better to teach children about staying safe online rather than banning them from social media.

A number of countries have moved to ban social media for children under 16.

Australia was the first country to enact a ban, which came into force in December, and countries including France and the UK have followed suit.

The UK hopes to ban children under 16 from accessing social media early next year and Taoiseach Micheál Martin welcomed the move.

While the Irish government is considering a similar ban, Martin said he would want to make the move at a European Union level.

“Social media is the public health issue of our time, and governments have to act,” said Martin in June.

He added: “It would be very preferable if, at European Union level, we could arrive at a decision in terms of banning social media for children, and the precise mechanisms around that.”

Ireland’s media watchdog Coimisiún na Meán has today published a new report which found nearly 70% of children think it would be better to teach them about staying safe online rather than banning them from social media. 

This is a sentiment some 49% of parents and caregivers agree with – 21% disagree.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of children think a social media ban wouldn’t work because they would find a way to get around it, and 43% of parents and caregivers agree.

But while close to half of parents/caregivers prefer the idea of online safety education over a social media ban, a majority agree that having no social media access would benefit their children.

Over 60% said that no social media access would make children more focused on schoolwork, and would have positive impacts on their online safety and mental health.

And while around a quarter of 9-11-years-olds have social media, this rises to 90% for those aged 16-17.

Elsewhere, fewer than half (46%) of children said they knew how to figure out whether a website could be trusted, while a one-third said they knew how to use private browsing.

Meanwhile, around half of children correctly identified that not everyone receives the same search results online (48%).

The report also found that a “significant proportion of children” reported having had “negative online experiences” in the past year.

A third of children overall, and almost half of 16–17-year-olds, had felt upset about something they had experienced online at least once in the past year.

Some 3% reported experiencing something online that upset them frequently.

Age was the strongest factor associated with feeling upset by something experienced online, and while there was little variation by social class, children with disabilities were more likely to report negative online experiences.

Half said they had felt upset by something online, compared with 33% of children overall.

They were also more than three times as likely to report feeling upset by something online frequently (7% compared with 2% of those without disabilities).

Meanwhile, face-to-face aggression was reported more often than online aggression.

One-in-five children said they had been treated in a “hurtful or nasty way” face-to-face in the past year, while 12% said it happened online.

Coimisiún na Meán also said it was “relatively uncommon” for children to receive sexual messages.

Some 90% of children aged 9-13 said they had never received a sexual message.

However, reports of receiving sexual messages became more common during adolescence, with children aged 16–17 substantially more likely (20%) than younger age groups (2% of children aged 9-11 and 6% of children aged 12-13) to report having received a sexual message.

The Coimisiún na Meán report, which surveys both children and their parents/caregivers, is part of a wider EU Kids Online survey. 

The comparative report of the findings from all the EU Kids Online participating countries will be published later this week.

Jeremy Godfrey, the executive chairperson at Coimisiún na Meán, said the findings will support “evidence-based policy development, programme design and decision-making that deliver positive outcomes for children and young people”.