Children's screen time and social media use up more than 70% during pandemic

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Children’s use of smart devices and general screen time has jumped hugely as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded here, with a negative impact on online safety and family wellbeing.

Those are the conclusions of a new research study that shows children here used smartphones 71% more than usual and social media 72% during the lockdown months.

Just under a third of the more than 500 children surveyed reported having been the subject of cyberbullying during the lockdown, while 50% said they had been witness to someone else receiving such abuse online.

The research titled Kids’ Digital Lives in Covid-19 Times has been compiled by academics from the National Anti-Bullying Research and Resource Centre at Dublin City University.

Bullying was found to be more prevalent among younger children and between males. For older children aged 14-16 the bullying tended to play out via private messaging services like Whatsapp or Viber.

The majority of those surveyed who acknowledged being cyberbullied, 39%, said that it had happened more frequently during lockdown than before.

Dr Tijana Milosevic, researcher at the Anti-Bullying Centre, said: “While we definitely need to be careful about cyberbullying, and ensure that every child who experiences it received adequate help, especially as children’s lives become ever more dependent on digital technology, these numbers may not be as alarming as we might have expected them to be.”

Ms Milosevic added that she wished to further draw attention to cyberbullying in the case of older cohorts over instant messaging.

“There is some debate about how to go about regulating such technology having in mind the private nature of conversations there, which makes these distinct from social media,” she said.

Given that such bullying looks quite different over instant messaging, she said “this can create challenges for prevention and intervention”.

In terms of increased screentime, the report found that more than half of parents, or 57%, were concerned that the pandemic would have a negative impact on their child’s education due to falling behind in classwork or failing exams, while 42% of parents were worried about cyberbullying, and 62% were fearful for their children’s mental health.

However, not all of the findings of the report were overtly negative regarding the use of technology during the pandemic.

“We expected to see an increased worry in parents, but these findings reveal that a number of parents also experience benefits related to digital technology use,” Dr Milosevic said.

She added that just 41% of the 500 parent respondents agreed with the statement that their family was experiencing fatigue from overuse of digital technology.

“Reading media reports during lockdown, I expected such numbers to be higher. It was also interesting to see changes in parental mediation,” said Dr. Milosevic.

Those changes include 42% of parents stating that they had been using digital technology more in the company of their child than before during lockdown, such as for playing games or learning together.

Just a quarter of parents meanwhile said that they forbade certain digital practices to their children to a greater extent during the pandemic than heretofore.