'Every day a dozen principals call us about the harm of social media on schoolchildren'

In a series of stark warnings to TDs and Senators, school leaders laid out how they can be at the frontline for the harms being done to children online even if this harm is happening outside of school hours. File picture

Schools can't keep up with the online trends harming children and are seeing horrific cases where pupils are unable to escape bullies on social media, teachers have said.

In a series of stark warnings to TDs and Senators, school leaders laid out how they can be at the frontline for the harms being done to children online even if this harm is happening outside of school hours.

This includes Coco’s Law, which criminalises the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and serious online bullying, according to National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) deputy director Rachel O’Connor.

"What we’re witnessing in our schools is a collective exposure to harm,” she said.

“We can put in all the interventions and programmes and supports in our schools, but unless the companies that are getting bang for their buck are held accountable... and every day [we could receive] 10 to 15 calls from principals about the harm that’s being caused in schools across all social media platforms.” 

Representatives from teachers and principals unions were before the Oireachtas Children’s Committee which is holding hearings on the safety of children online. It comes against the backdrops of recent controversies involving social media companies such as the Grok AI undressing scandal.

All the groups called for resources and training to support schools, as well as enforcement and accountability against tech platforms.

“Six months ago, nobody was talking about Grok,” Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) vice president Richie Bell said. “In six months time, it’ll be something completely different.

“It’s a little like the Golden Gate Bridge, once you’ve painted it you have to paint it again. How do you stay on top of it. As another colleague said ‘when society gets an itch, schools get scratched’.” 

Online bullying

While peer-to-peer bullying is a significant issue, the ASTI also said research it has conducted suggests that one in five second-level teachers have experienced work-related cyber abuse. 

In some cases, they face image manipulation and threats.

Its general secretary Kieran Christie said the ubiquity of smart devices has given bullying a whole new dimension and that this is facilitated subtly in different ways on the different social platforms.

“It’s a 24/7 phenomenon,” he said. 

“Now you can no longer escape the bullies at 4pm when you go home. And it spills over then in the school yard.” 

Anne Horan, president of the Irish National Teachers Organisation, said there are limits to how much schools can play a role in supporting children to be safe online and said a whole-of-society approach is needed.

Phones and child development

She said they would recommend to parents to delay mobile phones given the impact they can have.

“It has been reported to us [children have a] decreased capacity to concentrate,” Mr Horan said. 

“The children have less patience. They need constant distraction, and they need redirecting. There are huge challenges between friend groups, children have less social skills.” 

She said children using social media can confuse the number of friends they have on a platform with the number of people they actually meet with, bringing higher levels of anxiety and “worrying levels of low mood”.

Ms O’Connor said there is a vast difference between first years in secondary schools now and several years ago, and we have “vastly underestimated” the impact that covid-19 had on children in terms of the lack of socialisation.

In terms of the more serious cases, she said the NAPD lobbies for action based on the harm being done which included one case where Instagram changed their rules as a result.

“We had a very serious sextortion case,” Ms O’Connor said. “It was a minor groomed by a perpetrator online via their direct messaging. And we've seen horrific cases in terms of Coco’s law — the harm being done in schools, it’s horrific.”