Ms Shineka Scanlon:

I thank members for letting us be here today. This session is about hearing from young people, which really matters to us. Over the past few weeks, we have been talking to young people in Louth, Meath and Sligo. We had workshops, group chats and questionnaires so people could share their thoughts in their own words and talk about their real experiences. This builds on the peer education film project where young people made short films about things which affect them such as social media, online safety, and life online. We also spoke to different age groups.

One thing we noticed is that how we use technology changes as we get older. Younger children are more focused on gaming and are quite aware of staying safe online.

As we get older, we use social media and messaging apps more, and we are on our phones a lot more, often earlier than we think. The main thing we heard is that young people want to be listened to. We also think it really helps when young people learn from each other because we know what it is actually like. Today is about sharing those voices.

First, the committee will hear from our group about what we found and then they will hear from the next group who will talk about their film. I thank members for listening and I will outline our findings now. We surveyed 31 children between five and 13 years of age. All 31 children have access to their own devices - either phones, tablets or laptops. Some children had two or three of these items. The length of time spent on devices varied depending on the age groups surveyed. The five- to seven-year-old age group spent from under an hour to a couple of hours a day. The majority of the eight- to 13-year-old age group spent three to four hours a day on their devices, but a number of children in this age group said they spent over four hours a day. When asked if there were any rules in place at home around the use of devices, 14 out of 19 of the eight- to 13-year-olds said "No", four said "Yes" and one said "Kinda". There were more rules in place when it came to the five- to seven-year-old group. We asked, "Should little children use social media?" The majority of five- to seven-year-olds said "No", with one saying “Too young" and another saying “It’s not safe”. We asked the eight- to 13-year-old group what problems or risks come from social media. Responses included “stranger danger”, “in case you talk to someone who is older than you”, “bullying” and "sleep routine”. The group said some of the benefits of using social media include "make new friends”, "playing with friends”, “to learn and have fun”,”makes you closer to people” and “you learn stuff”. The apps and websites children mentioned in the survey that they access mostly have age restrictions of at least 13 years of age, but nearly all the participants can access them. When asked if there should be an age limit for social media, nine of the eight- to 13-year-olds said "Yes", five said "No" and one said "I don't know". These are some of the findings from the children who participated in our questionnaire. I thank the kids who participated and the committee members for listening.