Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 13 May 2021
Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht
General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed)
Ms Tanya Ward:
Ms Jennings made the point about the early years. The Council of Europe and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that online education should start in the early years but the other thing it said is that small children should be protected from technology. Therefore, giving a two-year-old or three-year-old child an iPad can actually be harmful to them, and that is the other message we probably need to get out there. We need to develop their digital competencies to get the best out of the online world and we need to start at an early age, but we also need to protect them from overexposure at a very young age.
No comments