Eoin Whelan

So if we think that, you know, if teenagers are struggling with self-esteem and anxiety and we just ban social media or take all the technology away that everything is going to be solved,

That's not quite the case.

There's other important factors that we need to consider as well.

So it's in context.

Social media is relevant.

There are harms there that we need to be concerned about and do something about.

But there is a bigger picture to be concerned with as well.

Yeah, we found when we looked at mental health issues, girls were slightly more likely to report a stronger link between time and social media and mental health issues.

But again, when we looked at the strength of the relationship, it was fairly modest overall.

But we did notice that there was gender issues around participation in sports, that for girls, the more time they spend on social media, the less likely they are to participate in sports.

Now, again, we can't say that social media causes this.

This has been a problem for decades, particularly teenage girls and getting them to participate in sports and physical activity.

I guess it's more difficult now that social media is so engaging that it can be even more difficult to get them to participate.

For teenage boys, it's actually the opposite situation.

There is a positive link between time on social media and participation in sports.

What we think is happening here is that boys are more likely to be part of football and hurling in soccer clubs and

Just by being part of that or as a byproduct, they join WhatsApp groups and Snapchat groups and they spend more time on social media, having the banter and things like that.

I think the issue is around participation in sports and not so much technology.

Absolutely, it's been a problem for decades and it's probably even a tougher egg to crack now.

disputing some of that but you just say the link isn't quite as strong as people might have thought no certainly not and those studies are very relevant there are harms associated with um social media what we should be focusing on is not protecting adolescents from the online world but is protecting them when they are in the online world so this is their life and they've grown up with it it's how they interact and socialize there are harms we know um in yeah our own study