FIVE members of Muintir Bháire Foróige in Durrus who recently took part in a social media experiment on RTÉ’s Prime Time had significantly reduced their screen times once they reactivated their social media apps.
The teenagers – Abbie Arundel, Daniel O’Sullivan, Mary Ellis, Seán O’Brien and Michaela Nicholas – who are aged between 13 and 16 deleted 10 major platforms from their phones for a full week during the recent mid-term.
The producers of Prime Time wanted to put the current Australia’s ban on under 16s using social media to the test and asked the teenagers to remove apps such as TikTok,Snapchat, YouTube, Kik, Threads, X and Reddit.
The report examined how central these platforms are to teenagers’ daily lives and what happened when the scrolling stopped, with many of them using social media from about two hours to six hours a day.
Once the apps were deleted, the five teenagers recorded daily video diaries to give viewers an insight into how they were coping.
Daniel O’Sullivan said in his video diary on Day two that he was getting on fine, hadn’t cheated and was ‘missing texting his friends on Snapchat’ but admitted it wasn’t the worst thing to have done.
The three girls – Abbie, Mary and Michaela – posted a video from their Foróige Ball on Day two also and said they missed their phones and it was a ‘bit boring’ not being able to text their friends.
After the experiment, the screen time off all five teenagers had dropped significantly.
Michaela cut her screen time the most from six hours and five min-utes to two hours and five minutes, followed by Abbey who reduced her usage from three hours and 12 min-utes to one hour and seven minutes. Sean cut his screen time from two hours and 27 minutes to just 48 min- utes, while Daniel dropped from two hours and 53 minutes to one hour and 25 minutes but he admitted he spent more time gaming.
They all agreed that social media shouldn’t be available to those under 13 but also added that there are ways in getting around giving the correct age.
This episode is available to watch on the RTÉ Player.
