Campaign needed to keep children's smart phones out of bedrooms at night

While campaigns to keep smartphones out of schools is overdue, as important and barely mentioned is urgent guidance and campaigns to support parents to keep smart phones out of bedrooms at night, writes Catherine Conlon

The latest CybersafeKids ‘Trends and Usage Report' shows that almost all (93%) of 8- to 12-year-olds owned a smart device and almost half (47%) owned a smartphone.

Online safety of children is a critical issue that is not being addressed in Ireland’s education system or by the social media companies, according to CyberSafeKids chief executive, Alex Cooney.

"Our data shows children are extremely active on social media, often unsupervised, leaving them highly vulnerable to bullying, grooming and exposure to violent or sexual content," said Ms Cooney.