Darragh's Soapbox: Is social media a bad influence?
Bridie Coghlan and Trish Browne
A newly elected MEP for Ireland South has this week said that the age at which a child can access social media should be raised to 16.
Most social media companies currently have a minimum age of 13 to register a social media account. Cynthia Ní Mhurchú says independent research shows this is too young for children to deal with the types of content that children are exposed to on social media.
According to Ni Mhurchú, children as young as eight can bypass the rules and register a social media account in as little as five clicks.
Locals in Waterford this week were asked if raising the age is worthwhile.
said: “I'm amazed at what young people can see on now on Tiktok etc.
“They could bring in new regulations, but I think it might be going down a bad road with limiting what people can see.
"I get it, but I don’t really see the point in it, because kids especially are still going to find a way to access what’s online. They live on their phones now and they were brought up on them so it will be hard to implement something like that."
added: "We definitely need to stop young people from being online. There's too much information and young people are learning too quickly.
"When they have a phone it's like being in another world and it's not limited to teenagers, young children are also on their phones too much.
"What will happen is we’ll lose our ability to talk to one another. We're losing what we always had in that sense. I think a child can have a phone that doesn’t have internet on it for basic phone calls and emergencies.”
also say that younger people shouldn’t have access to social media accounts: "People in secondary school maybe should be allowed but definitely not primary school students, it's too young," they concurred.
