Paul Hopkins: Is it smart to let a child have a mobile phone?

Eighteen years after it was first mooted, the iPhone has made Apple the world’s most valuable company (with a market capitalisation of $2.9 trillion as of last week) but, in a way, that’s the least interesting thing about it. What’s more significant is that the late Steve Jobs’ iconic invention sparked off the smartphone revolution that changed the way we humans function – for better and for worse.

Jobs’ seminal insight was that what was up to then just a one-dimensional mobile phone could be a powerful, networked hand-held device which could be used, not only to make voice calls but to access the internet – and all that that entails – and do a myriad other things like check your bank balance, check your physical activity, monitor you heart and other bodily functions, check out at the checkout, and, oh, take photos, those ubiquitous selfies. And the biggie? Keep you wired up, tuned in and turned on to the big wide world, effectively making it today the global village once cited by Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher who also coined the adage that the medium is the message.

That said, 18 years on we now know there’s a downside to this world of constant connectivity in which some people are never offline and are increasingly addicted to their devices to the point of social isolation.

Once, the smartphone was the prerogative of the adults who could afford one. Now comes the news that almost 25 per cent of six-year-olds in Ireland have their own smartphone, according to a new survey.

The study, by Amárach, on behalf of online safety charity CyberSafeKids, surveyed 900 parents who have children aged five to 17. It found that 45 per cent of children aged 10 can use their smartphone in their bedrooms and shows that more than half of parents do not feel well-equipped to teach children how to stay safe online.

A fifth of parents said the benefits of the internet and social media "outweighed the risks for children", while 25 per cent expressed extreme concern about the risk of online grooming, cyberbullying, and accessing pornography. A total of 21 per cent said their child had been purposely excluded from a group chat or online event, while 18 per cent said their child had been called offensive names.

This, I would suggest disturbing, news comes on the heels of a call for a ban on mobiles on school premises. Some schools do, but there is no uniform rule.

Banning children from using social media is not feasible Tanaiste Micheál Martin has said but that the Government could be stronger in warning of its hazards. He was being asked about whether Ireland would consider social media restrictions for young people following reports that the UK Government was considering such a move.

Mr Martin said he wanted to see more examples of schools agreeing a social media 'contract' on how to use social media but said that telling people what to do doesn’t always work, despite there being "merit in restricting the use of mobile phones within the school day and within schools themselves".

Meanwhile, Online Safety Commissioner Niamh Hodnett has said that work on a new Online Safety Code is continuing amid legal challenges from two of the proposed 10 platforms to be covered by such a code.

The smartphone is the most vivid example available of how technology can be – simultaneously – both good and bad, enabling and disabling, inspiring and disillusioning. The technical capabilities of modern phones are formidable and the ingenuity of the apps that harness those capabilities are often mind-blowing. At the same time, smartphones are also surveillance devices made in hell – tracking one’s every move, click, swipe and shake. And some of the apps that run on them are tailor-made vehicles for, sadly as we have learned, stalking, bullying, and harassment.

And these are now on the receiving end of malleable six and 10-year-olds.

My friend, the psychologist from Magherafelt, tells me over the phone: "Some people have a significant issue with not being able to disengage from their smart devices. While using such for everyday tasks, work, and socialising with friends and family is perfectly normal, not being able to put them down while engaged in a conversation with your significant other or a friend who’s sitting in front of you denotes an increasing problem."

A problem now facing our children. Where will they be 18 years from now? Probably living in a totally virtual world. Not talking to each other.