Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 April 2024

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

Protection of Children in the Use of Artificial Intelligence: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. David Miles:

It is a really interesting that screen time is something that has emerged as an issue in the last year or two. Prior to Covid, the concern was about video games and violent content. There has definitely been a shift. The Senator might be right that there was a Covid effect. The French Government, for example, has established a screen time committee to look this. The work of people like Professor Przybylski, of the Oxford Internet Institute is very informative. He has done some really interesting studies on what is the optimum amount of screen time. There is quite an amount of work going on in the academic environment. Academics are asking if we have a problem, how we quantify it, what is good screen use and what are the outcomes. I am happy to share links with the committee because that work is really interesting. The committee that President Macron formed, of which we are a part, is discussing these issues right now. It is discussing whether there is an optimum and whether we can get proper clinical guidance on this and think about it in a mature way, recognising that there is real concern. It is also asking whether platforms can bring in tools which reflect that guidance and I am optimistic that we can probably move in that direction, given that it is a significant concern.