By Sabrina Sweeney
Imagine a playground children love to visit and can happily spend a few hours.
I’m thinking of those worth the journey, with swings and slides and a good variety of other equipment, such as a trampoline, which can result in lots of interesting social interactions; a rope bridge; or a few climbing frames of different heights.
Sensory features are also a hit and again can help to encourage play between different groups of children.
In fact a lot of the time, that’s where the real fun is; in the little friendships that form, in the ability for children to be themselves and have opportunities to develop emotionally and socially whilst learning about others.
All of this fun, connection and exploration is done while a parent or guardian is either watching closely or on a bench nearby. After all, we want our children to have enjoyment and positive experiences but we also know their limitations and will be able to tell very quickly if they need guidance or assistance.
Now, imagine your kids’ favourite playground falls below the standard of what’s expected. Perhaps there’s broken equipment and racist graffiti visible, or there are teenagers teasing young children and forcing them to move from areas or adults without children loitering, attempting to talk to yours.
Few parents would encourage their child to play in such an environment, which might actually feel very unsafe. Thankfully, there are mechanisms in place and people you can speak to, to report such issues and have them dealt with efficiently.
Over in the online playground, however, it’s a very different picture. Published this week, the CyberSafeKids’ trends and usage report, shows that almost 65 per cent of 8 – 12-year-olds were contacted by a stranger during an online game; more than 25 per cent of children of the same age group were troubled by what they came across online, and a further 25 per cent encountered cyberbullying (this rises to 38 per cent of 12 to 14-year-olds).
According to CybersafeKids, the charity focused on child safety online, YouTube and Roblox are the worst offenders for exposure to troublesome incidents. Perhaps most worrying of all is the finding that more than half of children aged 8-12 did not tell a parent when bothered, confused or upset by harmful content or unsolicited contact, rising to 63 per cent for 12-14-year-olds.
Connection
For children and teenagers the main draw of online platforms and social media is the opportunity for connection. But unlike the playground, many are using these platforms with little involvement from parents, and worse, they are doing so in a space where there is little to no care for their safety by big tech.
In the last few years particularly, societal awareness around the dangers of smartphone usage among young people has increased. The establishment of Coimisiún na Meán is also a positive step in the work around protecting children from harm online as are the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act (OSMRA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) at the European level, but progress around regulation, accountability and transparency is slow.
Meanwhile, the big tech companies are not in any rush to act and why would they? They are making huge profits from the use of their platforms by children.
The people with the strongest ability to protect children right now are parents and guardians. Too many children have unrestricted online access and these environments are opening them up to so many dangers, whether that’s access to people who wish to cause harm, exposure to bullying and inappropriate content or algorithms pushing content that’s distorting their opinions and view of the world.
As parents we talk to our children about stranger danger and tricky people but the risks they pose are not confined to the outside world. On the contrary, dangerous people are actually more prevalent online and their unchecked ability to groom children to obtain contact and images is much greater.
We would be alarmed to hear of a child of eight or nine years old going to the playground alone and being approached by strangers much older than him or her, looking for information, so why are so many children being allowed the freedom to do as they wish online?
The web is the real world and what happens will continue to affect children, if we let it.
Sabrina Sweeney’s ‘Fresh Take’ column runs every Thursday in the Donegal News.
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