Eoin Whelan

So their whole business model is about engagement and keeping their people coming back to their platforms.

And if there's harms associated with that, well, people aren't going to go back and keep using their service.

So it's in their best interest to make sure that they keep people safe.

So as I said, for teenagers, what we should be focusing on and what the social media companies are focusing on

is not protecting people or protecting them from the online world, but protecting them when they are in the online world.

Yeah, the word addiction has been battened around a lot about phones and social media, so I'm not quite sure if that's the case.

What we do know is that some people do have problems using these technologies.

But we have to bear in mind as well that the world today is very different than it was 20 years ago.

So when we have been out doing studies with teenagers in school and talking to them, what they explain is that their lives are very structured nowadays.

They get dropped off at school, they're collected from school, they have after-school activities, they're under pressure to do well in exams.

And they don't have time to hang out with their friends and just mess around.

And, you know, that's social development, which is key for adolescents.

And social media becomes the second avenue to get that social interaction.

So, yeah, we've created a society where, in some ways, they have to use social media for social contact.

Yeah, good morning, David.

And this is something we did a study on ourselves a few years ago.

There was a pharmaceutical company that had a ban on smartphones in the workplace.

I guess they were concerned about for safety reasons that if employees are walking around and there's dangerous chemicals, that could be a health and safety hazard.

So they always had a ban.

But then recently, the employees, they wanted access to their fans, like some of your speakers were mentioning in the VoxTop, just to be contacted from the outside.