In the hive of Higher Options at the RDS this week, teenagers mill around with prospectuses in hand, college merchandise in their bags and a general air of giddiness at the freedoms lying ahead.
These 17- to 19-year-olds have grown up in a world dominated by social media. It is how they talk to their friends, express themselves and quell their boredom.
“You can show people what kind of person you are. You can share a bit about yourself and express yourself freely on it,” says Samuel Murphy, an 18-year-old Leaving Cert student at the Patrician Secondary School in Newbridge, Co Kildare.
He agrees with some of the social media ban announced by the European Commission this week but does not think older teenagers should be restricted.
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“I don’t think it’s a good idea because you use it if you’re meeting up with your friends, and your social life starts when you’re in secondary school,” he says. “I think it would be good for children under like 12 or something, but I think 16 is a bit too high.”
But what exactly is in the ban, what do teenagers make of it and will it actually work?
This week the European Commission announced it was moving forward with plans to ban social media for children under 13 years of age.
It would also be restricting access for those aged 13-15, and having a safe design obligation for children aged 15-18.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced the intention in her state of the European Union address on Wednesday. A full outline of the EU Kids Act was published on Thursday.
There are four pillars to the legislation: social media delay, safety by design, age assurance and enforcement.
The key age limits are contained in the first pillar. Children aged up to 13 will have no social media accounts, but can access child-friendly video-sharing services through their guardians’ accounts.
Children aged 13-15 can have mini social media and video-sharing accounts set up and supervised by their guardians. These accounts should have limited features and screen time.
Those aged 15-18 can set up autonomous accounts without prior parental consent, operating within a safe-by-design environment.
Maddie Law, an 18-year-old Leaving Cert student from Trim, Co Meath, believes the ban is a good idea because social media can isolate children from real life.
“You don’t really know what’s going on around you, especially when you’re so locked into what you’re watching or what you’re doing on your phone,” she says.
Regarding what she or her peers might have done with their time had they not been on their phones, she says: “Go outside. Literally, go outside, touch some grass. Go hang out with your friends, hang out with your family, make the most of life, not just sit in your room on your phone all the time.”
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She says children nowadays are “constantly on their phones, talking to their friends, playing games, and they’re not really spending much time doing anything else – they are constantly doom scrolling,” Law says.
She hits upon a key feature of the legislation: safety by design measures, intended to reduce infinite scrolling and being enticed down rabbit holes.
This aspect of the new law requires social media companies to not have any addictive design features in their apps, to ensure their recommender algorithms are safe for children, that there are no livestream functions, and easy-to-use parental controls.
Social-media platforms must also verify the age of users opening an account through either the EU age verification tool, or another third-party tool.
The fourth pillar addresses enforcement. Very large social-media companies will have to put forward a detailed plan on how they intend to meet these new laws and have it checked by independent auditors before coming into contact with children.
They will also be subject to expedited enforcement procedures, with investigations having to be concluded within 90 days.
But will this actually work? We know that in Australia, most teenagers are still using social media despite a ban for under-16s coming into effect late last year.
“There are a couple of things I would say are positive [about the EU ban compared to Australia’s],” Alex Cooney, chief executive of CyberSafeKids, says.
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The requirement for the age verification tool to be third party makes it independent and more rigorous, whereas “the Australian’s left it open,” Cooney says.
The expedited process for sanctions and investigations is also welcome, she says, because otherwise it can become “a really dragged out process”.
However, the legislation is missing one thing campaigners were looking for: a precertification process before the social-media companies could access children.
“We wanted some sort of independent body set up at the European level, a bit like film classification, that had the job of determining risk versus age, but that’s not in the legislation.”
Instead, this model “requires harm to have happened” before an investigation can begin.
So while the new legislation has been welcomed by many, and goes further than anything seen before, there remains a scepticism over whether it will actually work in practice.
