Irish Examiner view: When it comes to phone use, parents must practise what they preach
The CyberSafeKids survey found that more than 80% of 8- to 12-year-olds are allowed to use phones and other smart devices unsupervised. Picture: iStock
Technology should, in an ideal world, be a great equaliser, opening a universe of possibilities to people from all corners of the globe who might not otherwise be able to access them.
Yet, with each passing day of misinformation, disinformation, misogyny, and racism, it seems that Safer Internet Day has an ever more difficult challenge on its hands.
As reported in yesterday’s , a survey of more than 2,000 primary school children carried out by CyberSafeKids found more than 80% of 8- to 12-year-olds are allowed to use phones and other smart devices unsupervised in their bedrooms, while only 35% said their parents could see what they are doing online.
The group said this increases the risk of being exposed to inappropriate content or messages from strangers. It also makes children less likely to say if they’ve come across material that’s upset or concerned them. Sometimes they may not even realise the problems with the content: How many teachers have had a student quote Andrew Tate, for instance?
For parents, it seems like Sisyphus pushing a boulder uphill forever, a thankless task made more difficult by the evolution of technology in all its forms, from smaller hardware to powerful software that regularly outpaces attempts to codify or regulate in law.
Tech companies have some responsibility here as well, even if various attempts at creating teen or child spaces online have generally had guardrails made out of wet cardboard rather than concrete. However, it is welcome that Google, OpenAI, Roblox, and Discord have formed the Robust Open Online Safety Tools non-profit organisation to help improve child safety online. Roblox in particular has been highlighted as exposing children to potentially adult content.
We all remember how Islamic State turned to social media to radicalise young Muslims, but how do you spot danger signs?
In an age when any sort of deepfake or altered image can go viral, Britain and US refusing to sign a declaration in Paris “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet” doesn’t help.
But that doesn’t mean we should throw our hands up and let the boulder roll us pancake-flat.
Banning devices for younger children would just make them more desirable, though free and unfettered access isn’t the answer either.
The value of the parent-child relationship, in all its phases, was made clear again in just yesterday’s Examiner Parenting section.
As Joanna Fortune noted, teenagers tend to dismiss parents’ advice (we all did it to our parents), so reframe it. While she was talking about sleep, the reframing concept works in other things. In that case she suggested, for instance, showing her advice as something found online. It’s finding a way to have the conversation that comes across more comfortably and doesn’t seem preachy.
The earlier the conversation is had, the better.
That said, as adults we have to practise what we preach. There’s no sense in ordering children off their phones (if they have them) when ours are glued to our hands.
We do, ultimately have a choice to make.
Do we want children who can think beyond the screen, or do we want to be the parents that lost a generation to phones and AI?
Elon Musk, seemingly so busy dismantling the US that he couldn’t possibly have time to run his business interests, has now set his sights on a bn takeover of AI giant OpenAI.
Musk, like Donald Trump, has a history of falling out with, and just as importantly feuding with, assorted business partners. He pushed out the original founders of Tesla, founded Neuralink after failing to take control of another company, and founded xAI after his relationship with OpenAI deteriorated to the point of no return. He was involved with it being founded in 2015 as a non-profit, a status the company has recently being looking to change.
His attempts now to buy that company, still considered a leading force in AI (artificial intelligence) despite the sudden appearance of DeepSeek and the exponential development of its rivals, should be seen in that context. Musk has previously sued OpenAI over its efforts to become a for-profit company (proof that he appreciates courts when it suits him).
Sam Altman’s response came on Musk’s social media plaything X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want”.
While the oft-repeated line is that money talks, and so the OpenAI board may well see the offer as too good to turn down, it’s worth bearing in mind that its last funding round put OpenAI’s value at somewhere around $155bn. It could conceivably fetch far more.
Altman is also highly involved in the 0bn Stargate AI infrastructure project announced by Trump. Musk, without evidence, has claimed the project doesn’t have the finances it needs. Yet that hasn’t stopped AI being touted as the solution to America’s ills from aviation to fraud prevention.
So is this driven by petty childish jealousy, or by an obsessive need to gather power into his own hands? Why not both? It’s a frightening, indeed terrifying prospect.
In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Ingsoc party’s concern, above all else, is power (this was also reflected in the television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale).
Amid reports that Musk’s Doge team is already feeding sensitive government information into AI to identify cuts, and at a time when US vice president JD Vance complains that Europe over-regulates AI while Europe is committing tens of billions to catch up, a question we have to ask is: How much power is too much for one person?
All things come to an end, even the good ones, and so it is with the announcement that BT is wrapping up its sponsorship of the Young Scientist Exhibition.
Thankfully, the exhibition, the largest of its type in Europe and which has proved a launchpad not only for creativity but for careers and innovations, will continue — though after 25 years, there are few more embedded brands in this country. Some 550 projects are exhibited annually and 40,000 people visit the event.
Given the tremendous goodwill surrounding the Young Scientist Exhibition, one expects there should be no shortage of interest in getting involved from one of the many large companies that call this country a home.
If Cork City FC can realistically seek €150,000 annually for the naming rights to Turners Cross, then what value can you put on the Young Scientists?
It would be a win for all parties, something wholly positive in grim times.
