Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and thank them for their interesting contributions. I will pick up on the social media issues and ask a devil's advocate-type question. I note from the NAPD's submission the need for a separate and exhaustive investigation into the abuse of social media, its destructive bullying and the impact on young people’s mental health. In this culture we live in where there is a strong emphasis on nurturing of people and minding people’s mental health, and the unfairness of bullying behaviour, I wonder if bullying is a small subset of a wider problem about the abuse of social media. Young people’s experience of social media can involve exhaustion, sleep deprivation, unrealistic aspirations about life, negative body image, and perhaps over sexualisation or desensitisation to violence. Some of those issues are connected to bullying but many are not. Is bullying the minor theme and are social media and its various problems the major theme?