Emer McLysaght Author and journalist

In Nobody Needs This, a new series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad.

NEXT WEEK, SECONDARY schools will begin welcoming swathes of (mostly) 12 and 13-year-olds for their first taste of Big School life.

It’s a huge step. I remember feeling apprehensive about finding my way around and making new friends. I was excited about having my own locker and carrying my books in my arms, which seemed extremely glamorous and American (the shine soon wore off).

One thing I didn’t have to consider was my mobile phone. And thank God for that.

Smartphones and social media didn’t catch on until after I’d left secondary school. For the current crop of first years, they’ve been part of their lives in some capacity since they were born. Their parents have likely had smartphones and Instagram or Facebook accounts for their entire lives.

Depending on the rules around smartphone and app use at home, the first years might be experts on TikTok trends and sending messages on Snapchat, or maybe they’ve had limited access with phone use reserved for adults only. They might, as is the case in a lot of families, have received their first personal smartphone to mark the transition from primary to secondary school. Some of them were swiping on phones and tablets before they could turn the page of a book. Some of them received phones when they were seven or 10.

None of them should be on social media. None of them.

Several of my friends have children starting secondary school in the next week, and there’s been much debate and gnashing of teeth over which phones to provide to accompany this rite of passage.

A dumb phone – an ‘old fashioned’ brick or flip phone like the Nokias and Motorolas of yore – is the safest option. It allows for basic communication both with parents and friends but restricts access to the internet and smartphone apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram.

But what if all the friends are getting smartphones? What if they’re all on a WhatsApp group chat and one child isn’t? What if everyone is sharing the same video or recreating the same trend and one child feels left out? And what if a parent decides to provide a smartphone and it leads to online bullying, exposure to dangerous material, isolation, anxiety and one million other things they haven’t even worried about yet?

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Frustratingly, there is no solid answer to this dilemma. Yes, there are wishy-washy limits and guidelines and restrictions that are so easily dodged they may as well not exist.

Children are protected from harmful substances like alcohol and cigarettes with socially recognised and legally protected restrictions. Films shown in cinemas are heavily regulated.

I went to see the Anne Hathaway dinosaur film The End of Oak Street with a friend last weekend. It has all the markings of a family adventure movie yet there were no children or young teens in the cinema, which felt curious for a Sunday afternoon.

After watching the movie, which essentially is a family adventure film but is dark in places and full of danger and peril, I looked up the rating given by the Irish Film Classification Office. The End of Oak Street was given a 15A rating, owing to the level of violence.

A 15A film has been deemed appropriate for viewers of that age and above but may be viewed by younger children provided they are accompanied by an adult who is happy for them to see it. A child can’t wander in to a viewing of The End of Oak Street but they can wander around the internet unchecked if lazily granted access to it.

‘It’s the responsibility of the parents’.

Yes, to a large extent it is. However, in order to protect children every parent would need to be stringently on the same page, which is never, ever going to happen.

Every ‘no internet’ parent has had a child arrive home from a play date with news of a YouTube video or a TikTok trend or a funny filter they’re now obsessed with. In one primary school class there could be children who received a smartphone for their Communion and children who’ve never owned a tablet.

Our children exist in communities, communities of friends and schools that have no bearing on what happens at home and no control over what individual families allow. If eight children are allowed to have Snapchat or Instagram accounts and one or two aren’t, that’s a recipe for any number of problems.

If two-thirds of a class have been online since they were two and one third weren’t allowed YouTube at home, it’s a problematic division. The schools only have so much control they can exert in limiting phone use during school hours. Many of them use tablets with restrictions as learning tools, which is appropriate in a society that is almost completely online.

Nobody needs twelve- and thirteen-year-olds on Snapchat. Nobody needs them on unmonitored WhatsApp group chats accessible 24-hours a day. But it’s every parent for themselves out there, and that needs to change.

We need cigarette and alcohol style restrictions on access to the internet and social media. Tech companies and government are not taking the protection of children seriously enough. It should be an anomaly to see a 13-year-old on Snapchat, not the norm.

Think I’ve gone full nanny state? I’ll leave you with this story of two 13-year-olds charged in Ohio with rape and recording it on Snapchat at a sleepover. The victims in the case alleged that porn played a part in the incident. The accused ultimately took a plea deal, the terms of which banned unsupervised access to phones and the internet.

Your children don’t need social media. They don’t need unfettered access to the
internet. Stop giving it to them. Make it an anomaly. Get them to sixteen at least.

Currently reading:

• East of Eden by John Steinbeck (with my ears) ahead of the Netflix release of an adaptation starring Florence Pugh
• Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (with my eyes) which features one of my favourite supporting characters in all of fiction (the sister).

Currently watching:

Sterling Point. Sabrina Lantos / Prime Sabrina Lantos / Prime / Prime

• Sterling Point on Amazon Prime
• Furious on Disney Plus

Currently coveting:

An above ground pool after becoming deeply invested in the story of a woman in Michigan who, in a bid to make her children’s dreams come true, bought an above ground pool on Facebook Marketplace for $450, went with her husband to dismantle it with great difficulty, and is now attempting to reinstall it in her back garden.

At the time of publication, there are six parts of the saga on Instagram. Enjoy! (And yes, this is appropriate for children to watch, supervised).

Emer will be back next Friday morning with more recommendations.