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A QUARTER OF 8-14-year-olds struggle to spend time away from gaming and social media as new research suggests it may be difficult for the cohort to put them down.
Over 7,000 children were surveyed by CybersSafeKids, Ireland’s child online safety charity, as part of the new study into the attitudes and feelings towards screen time.
More than half (53%) of children aged 8-12 years old and 65% of 12-14-years-olds told the survey that they believe they spend too much time on screens.
An overwhelming majority of the children attributed positive emotions towards social media and gaming as well.
CyberSafeKids said the positive emotions indicate that an all out ban on screens and internet use is not possible.
Some children – particularly secondary school-aged girls – did report negative feelings, such as tiredness, jealousy, anxiety and fear.
Many children said they believe they “spend too much time” on social media and games. This was over half of kids aged 8-12 and two thirds of those aged 12-14.
The same number of children said they felt they could not put their devices down for long periods of time.
To counter this, the charity are proposing a ‘Cyberbreak’, where the use of all devices connected to the internet are banned.
The break will begin at 5pm this evening and will continue until 5pm tomorrow.
CyberSafeKids CEO’s Alex Cooney said that while the internet does bring many benefits, it can often become “too all-consuming”.
She said that the Cyberbreak is aimed at making people – young and old – reassess how much time they spend online and how many hours they lose for quality family time to “mindlessly scrolling”, admitting she has fallen victim of it too.
Over 50,000 people have signed up to take part in this year’s Cyberbreak, and there is still time to join on the CyberSafeKids website.
Richard Hogan, author and family psychotherapist, and Derek Chambers, the policy lead at the national mental health department in the HSE, have both welcomed the initiative.
Hogan said that more people, but in particular young people, need to take more time to disconnect while Chambers said doing so can help to reduce the anxiety and improve the quality of sleep, which in turn helps to boost mental health for everyone.
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It sounds like parental control is a thing of the past.
@RIP: It’s funny you mention that, I recall hearing radio ads about how Meta provides parental controls for Instagram and how they can do this and that. But I bet most parents probably don’t have a clue how to use them or even know they are there in the first place.
@RIP: my parental control was a wooden spoon, the good old days
@Daniel Skelton: there is a parental controls app with Google as well, where a parent can monitor the child’s activities online and reduce the time spent on the phone, but same, I’m sure not many know this, and fewer even use it.
@Jerry LeFrog: same as taking a phone of a child.. .. they will just use their friends phone instead.
@Joe Beirne: you cannot beat the children with sticks like that. Not on.
@Joe Beirne: if you go around beating the kids, we will end up with more awful albums like The Wall (pink Floyd).
no surprise. breeding zombies who walk around staring at screen in their hand. frightening the amount of young people that lack the most basic of social skills.
@Niall English: yes, I see a lot of them in the streets, transportation and workplace. I speak of adults actually
@Dominic Leleu: yep I agree. I see people driving and scrolling through Facebook and instagram and when they nearly hit you and you beep they look at you like it’s your fault
@Niall English: it’s not only young people! Do you drive?
There is absolutely no problem with video games. Absolutely nothing. A lot of people including myself find it an escape from reality, and enjoy getting lost in incredible stories and exploring fantasy worlds. On the other hand, however, I absolutely 110% agree about the social media problem. It’s disgraceful sites like Sc umbook, TikToxic, and Instatoxic that are the real and true problems that openly promote and allow malicious content onto their platforms.
@Daniel Skelton: a very similar addiction to heroin though where video games are used to escape the real world. I would say keep an eye on your usage daniel, 14 hours a day playing video games is not conductive to your life.
@Daniel Skelton: So you absolutely agree, plus a bit more?
@Buster Lawless: You might be partially correct about how it’s not conductive to my life, but that’s what makes me happy. I do have times where I spend too much time on them, maybe I’ll end up being a few minutes late to work because of a story I’m getting invested in. But I can balance my time between virtual worlds and the real world. You just need discipline.
@Daniel Skelton: Just to add onto this, video games are also beneficial and have been proven to aid hand eye coordination. I was born with Dyspraxia, and have been playing games from a young age. They have helped my coordination a lot.
@Daniel Skelton: very good Daniel and agreed you need to have a good balance. If it makes you happy that’s all matters. Have a good day.
@Daniel Skelton: Yeah, lads, don’t be letting heat or electricity pass through you.
@Daniel Skelton: another way to escape reality is to read a good book!! Free from your local library and can be used as a useful conversation with another person
@Mary Kelly: Is it conducive to conductivity?
Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.
@Pól Pot: and to be more specific, 63% of statistics are made up on the spot.
You got parents that don’t parent, instead opting for these devices to ‘babysit’ their kids…
Parental responsibility. It is so much easier to hand your kid a phone /tablet than say no. The usual bs is that they need to know how to use tech, and if their kids access unsuitable material online blame the government. As a parent who strict with this I find other parents who are not the most defensive, and are the ones who say schools should ban mobiles, so they can blame the school instead of actually parenting and not trying to be their kids friend
Can everybody reading this comment please log off now. Thanks
So sad
Well if the article of the (above) newry catfish low life isn’t enough to deter you from keeping kids off their phones more often/oversee their SM activity….(prefer not to let my kids have phones in any case)
I know the video I’d like to send to his victims… it involves him, me & a pair of loppers. Truly twisted person, hopefully, prison justice will deal with it.
@wwvCLOuF: apologies, I shouldn’t write that last part, its agressive & off topic, sort of. Having just read the article I’m referring to, I found it really harrowing & triggered that above response. I do hope this guy gets justice though.
It controls most of our lives unfortunately, it’s powering our daily lives.
Whilst the other half are begging for iphones..
I would just LOVE to be in a house of kids tonight that are on a cyberbreak..it’ll be netflix horror stuff
have your say