The dangers of a digital childhood and the best kind of influencer

There has been so much in the media over the last few months about the bad effects, on children in particular, of mobile phones and social media. Some would decry it as the latest moral panic, but I think there’s a lot to be concerned about.

One of the best items on the problems was on The Claire Byrne Show (Newstalk, Tuesday), with stand-in presenter Claire Doherty. Mick Moran of the Irish Internet Hotline described how giving children a smartphone at First Communion time, as a sort of rite of passage, was “bananas” and he was convincing. Parents who did that, whatever the peer pressure, were opening their children up to a very adult world that they weren’t equipped to cope with. The social media companies had created addictive practices that even adults were drawn into. The problems included addiction and sleep deprivation, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Parents were being “trapped in a digital economy”, urged to “buy, buy, buy”, surrendering their “digital autonomy”, with practices like doom scrolling driven by commercialism rather than a genuine interest in technology. Children, he said, were being “thrown to the wolves”. As regards any solutions, he admired “phone free childhood” movements and parents banding together to refuse smartphones to the very young, as happened in Greystones.

That same day The Funeral of Glen Hansard (RTÉ News channel, Tuesday) was, for the most part, a moving and inspiring ceremony, in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Rev. William Morton spoke some inspiring words, and highlighted, as many have done, Hansard’s amazing fundraising work, especially for the homeless of his native city. His wife Maire was very dignified in her few words, starting off by the thanking, by name, the Gardaí who attended the scene of the accident. At times, however, it was more like a concert than a funeral. I did like his brother Garry’s song, I Can See God, and in fact the whole service was unashamedly Christian. At the end it was somewhat over the top as Liam Ó Maonlaí led a mighty rendition of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young, as a recessional hymn, with all the Irish music stars in attendance joining in. At this stage, though I enjoyed the song, I thought the emphasis was off the deceased and more onto the stars present, as it became something of a raucous sing song. Maybe this was due to the camerawork that focused on the musicians and singers. The presentation was somewhat rudimentary as it was just streaming rather than a proper outside broadcast.

A more low-key religious ritual was highlighted on Nationwide (RTÉ One, Wednesday) when the focus was on the 100th Eucharistic Procession in Cork city – a particularly rainy Cork for this Corpus Christi. Marian Malone’s report was very positive and highlighted the diverse congregation attending – a variety of ages and genders, with many of the “New Irish” swelling the ranks, injecting a fresh enthusiasm. Apparently, the original procession was intended to help heal divisions caused by the Civil War. Part of the preparation involved a visit of relics of St Carlo Acutis, and in the second half of the programme reporter Colm Flynn presented a concise and inspiring overview of the saint’s life, interviewing some of the many Irish teens inspired by his life, with the help of Fr Michael Toomey from Ardfinnan, familiar to many from the TV Mass on Monday mornings. St Carlo engaged positively with the online world, which drew teens to him – the best kind of influencer.

And finally, I had an eye-roll moment when I heard on The Claire Byrne Show (Newstalk, Thursday) of a new Government initiative to tackle the bad ideological influence of “trad wife” influencers and the “manosphere”. At least it was a balanced discussion with Aoife Rooney of the Irish Independent being broadly supportive and psychotherapist Stella O’Malley regarding it as authoritarian social engineering. There’s some good stuff in it, like the idea of sharing the caring more evenly between men and women, but it looks like we’re going to get a few months of fashionable hectoring in media campaigns. Maybe it will replace current campaigns about chewing gum and consent. And there was no mention of other negative influences and ideologies pervading the internet, education and society – e.g. relating to questionable and contested gender theory.

Among the implicit messages, I guess: ‘trad bad, trans good’.