{"id":626742,"date":"2026-09-16T19:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T19:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626742\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T19:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T19:46:09","slug":"irish-teenagers-have-their-say-on-social-media-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626742\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish teenagers have their say on social media rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the announcement of a proposed EU ban on social media for under 13s<\/a> and safe design rules for older teenagers, students at St Mac Dara’s Community College in Templeogue in south Dublin have been giving their views.<\/p>\n

The students were asked by RT\u00c9’s News at One reporter Edel McAllister about how social media apps affect them.<\/p>\n

Corey Clerkin, 14, said that social media had affected life in both good and bad ways.<\/p>\n

“The good way is you can go out with your friends and text them and all that outside of school, but also the bad side of it is all the cyber bullying and the negative stuff that can come from it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think you should have an account without parental permission. I also think the parents should monitor their accounts to make sure that their children are being kind to other people and people are being kind to their children.”<\/p>\n

Anna Freemantle said she believed that parents didn’t know what their children were watching on social media, and have little say on the accounts that their kids have.<\/p>\n

“I think the EU rules will keep the children, and the kids and young adults, on social media, safer because parents will be able to monitor what they’re watching more and have a say in it,” said the 16-year-old.<\/p>\n

“Parents know their kids best and parents know what they need, and what is bad for them, and what will keep them safe,” she added<\/p>\n

Tadhg Condon, 16, said that some social media apps are addictive.<\/p>\n

“If I’m caught there, on Instagram, and I’m scrolling through, and the feed has been kind of fit to me and what I’ve searched, and the kind of people I follow, it will kind of look at that, see, ‘oh, this is what he wants to look at. I’ll give all these different things’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So, if I’m scrolling and I’m like, okay, that was grand, I’ll move on and I’ll see something like, ‘I’m gonna’ have a look at this’ and then suddenly I’m two hours into it, when I really should have only been on it for five minutes.”<\/p>\n

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Abby Bassett said it could be socially difficult to be on the social media apps.<\/p>\n

“It can be a negative effect on your mindset, comparing yourself to people, seeing stuff that isn’t appropriate for your age, stuff like that,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Personally, I haven’t had that experience. I’m not on the apps that are any way harmful, but I have heard stories.”<\/p>\n

She said that people were being bullied and were being left out, particularly girls.<\/p>\n

“It’s a lot easier to say negative stuff and be rude when you’re doing it behind the screen because you’re protected,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Even being behind the screen gives people confidence to say stuff that they would never say online. They could seem like the nicest person ever and then you go online and they have this alter ego.”<\/p>\n

Education, parental involvement and responsible platform design key – principal<\/p>\n

The principal of St Mac Dara’s, Frances Gibson, says that social media has become part of school life, to help students stay connected and access information instantly.<\/p>\n

“But we’ve also seen challenges around wellbeing, concentration and online behaviour,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I think most schools are trying to find the right balance. Any measures that make platforms safer for young people are definitely welcome. But education, parental involvement and responsible platform design are just as important as age restrictions.”<\/p>\n

She said that, as a school, it used to be easier to manage the life of the school, but that now school life also takes place out of the school setting.<\/p>\n

“In the past, you went home, that was the end of the matter. Whereas now the matter is brought home.<\/p>\n

“It’s in the bedroom, you know, the conversation goes on in an unsupervised way and that can be challenging for us. It can counteract some of the good work that teens have done in schools.”<\/p>\n

She said that social media has definitely affected learning and that students are more reluctant to pick up a book.<\/p>\n

“A lot of their information, they access online and this will be in shorter snippets,” she explained.<\/p>\n

“We would spend a lot of time helping students to learn, to question sources and to be critical in their thinking but that’s not necessarily the way that they access online information.”<\/p>\n

She said she welcomed the proposed EU rules.<\/p>\n

“I think parents, all parents, should be involved in their child’s social media content and how they engage with it. I think right up until they leave school almost, parents should absolutely be involved.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the announcement of a proposed EU ban on social media for under 13s and safe design rules…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-626742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}