Interview 23: Muireann Sadlier

Hello. Hello. You are very welcome to if I were the minister for education from onshaw. net, this is Simon Lewis. And first of all, a very happy new year to everyone. I am very excited because my first. podcast of 2025 is an interview. I haven't done an interview for quite some time, but I'm delighted to be joined by Miren Sadlier, who is the director of Cyber Smarties Ireland. And I'm going to let Miren introduce herself in a minute or two, but for those of you who are interested in keeping children Not only safe online, but also to learn how to use the internet in a positive way. And so on this is some, this isn't a podcast you're going to want to listen to because there's some really interesting developments there. And I'm hoping that I'll be able to ask most of the questions that most of us all have as parents and teachers and so on to Murren, but. I think the best thing to do to start off with is to let Mirren introduce herself. You're very welcome to If I Were the Minister for Education, Mirren. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Not at all. So as I always say to my guests without sounding like the first question in an interview, what can you tell us about yourself? A little bit about myself, I originally trained as a teacher like most members of my family, we were a teaching family, my parents and my siblings are teachers, and I went to Mary I and completed my degree in Mary I but I continued. with my studies as I was really interested in well being and particularly in behavior and well being. So I did a postgraduate course in St. Patrick's Syndrome Chondra and it was education of children with ASDs and I followed that with a postgraduate course. Diploma in education in Mary I and then I did a Masters in education, focusing on communication and well being in children with special educational needs. Particularly I worked with children who were non verbal. So, a large part of my career has been in education and I've spent 18 years working in a special school in Limerick. I had a couple of different roles, I was acting principal. Thank you. I was acting deputy principal for a few years and I was seconded from, I was seconded from the school to work with SESS, which is a special education support service for a few years. And I did school support visits around behavior and wellbeing. And then I worked for a while with NCSC and all this has led me to really have a vested interest in. What are we doing to support the well being needs of the children in our schools? And how can we best meet their needs? And so this is a wonderful, real a new adventure in the area of behaviour and well being in schools. Fantastic. So I suppose what we're going to be talking about, we'll definitely be talking about cyber smarties Ireland, but in a more general sense, we're going to be talking about technology. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. It's my own background as most people listening to this would know. And I guess I was reading some of the reports that are being sent out around digital technology and children, and every year there's reports that come out from different agencies, and the one that I was looking at this year, which I thought we might start off with, it was a fact that jumped out at me, was a stat, it was something like 95. 8 percent of children Aged 8 to 12 feel anxiety or stress if the Wi Fi is turned off in their home. It was a kind of a it's a finding that kind of jumped out at me as I've been quite worrying in some ways but also not surprising. I suppose I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts on that, but also was there any findings that you came across that might've surprised you? Yeah, every year when the, these reports are released, I find them quite shocking and I read them every single time more than once. More than half of Irish children reported in 2024 that they know they spend too much time online. And 80 percent of parents in Ireland reported that they don't really know or feel confident that their child is safe online. And those are amazing statistics as well as that more than one in five children under the age of six have their own smartphone, which is quite worrying because not all devices have, filtration apps or Preventative apps or parent monitoring apps. And it can be difficult as well for some parents to understand technology. I'm one of those parents where sometimes I need advice on how something works or how to download something or fix something. But as we go towards the age of eight years old with, recent studies of children in Ireland. So in the last 12 months in Ireland. 93 percent of 8 to 12 year olds, they own their own device, whether it's a smartphone or it's, I think it's smartphones plus tablets, but when you're using smartphones or tablets, it can be difficult to ensure your own child's safety or a child's safety in general, which is worrying. A third of children. Can say, have stated, more than a third of children have stated, that they do game online with people they don't know. And two thirds of children are, have reported in the last year, that they were contacted by strangers during gaming online or online. With at least a quarter of children seeing something that they've said, or that they categorized. Thank you for your time. distressing that they don't want to disclose to parents because I suppose maybe they're nervous, maybe they're afraid they'll get into trouble. And a lot changed with technology since we had the pandemic and since we had lockdown and we now access people far and wide. I never used even zoom before the, before lockdown, I never heard of it. But what happened during lockdown is that it became apparent through these research statistics. The predatory activity focusing on Irish children increased by 40 percent since lockdown. And that is through gaming and through chat. But we do have children who live in rural areas and so gaming or being in contact with children in their class through devices, keeps them in touch with one another. So there'll be, different sides to the story or different ways of looking at things. What can be worrying is that, I'd be the parent and I'd be the teacher. We, we don't know for sure. That was always a thing that worried me when it comes to online safety for children. Some of the statistics are frightening. This is it. And I'm I suppose I'm coming to you in this, not only as a teacher and a principal and I suppose someone who'd been fairly well up in technology and education, but I, but also as a parent, I have a 10 year old and. So he fits right in the middle of those eight to 12 year olds. And I know he's one of the 7 percent that doesn't have a smart device. And it's a constant, it's a constant conversation where between myself and my wife and him and why and all the rest of it. And I suppose the thing is I'm petrified about, The time, there will be a time I will be giving my child a device of some sort whether it's a, an an iPad or a tablet or a or even a smartphone. And that balance. Knowing that I'm essentially giving my child potentially a weapon or without overdramatizing it or by not doing so risk becoming a social pariah. And I guess, I, what I'm asking is like, what would you say to parents like me who, I would say I'm pretty well up, but I'm still petrified. I think I'm all up. I would have. I would have been in that position more than once with our own children, and I really would not consider myself very technologically aware, or whether, I don't feel I would have been very well educated on technology at the time when I had to make those decisions. And I suppose, It seems to me that we're going towards times where communication using devices seems to be inevitable. Chat forums through gaming seems to be inevitable. And, even Google Classroom are using devices for education. It seems to be inevitable that children are going to be using devices. And I'm so banning them, restricting them, holding it to a certain age. Some parents will go and will actually feel that's the best thing for their child. And every parent is the primary educator of their child. They know what's best for their child. But what I found What was conflicting for me was that if I am that parent who does not give my child a device in third, fourth class, fifth class, sixth class, they will probably end up getting a device in first year or in the first few years of secondary school, but they will not have the skills prerequisite to communicating using a device. They will not have experience of. What do I do if somebody says something that I feel is inappropriate and I just worry now with the inevitability of using devices, whether it could be unfair not to give Children a chance to learn really important interaction skills and social skills if possible. And that's where I found cyber smarties very interesting because it is endorsed by on Garda she Akona. And it's endorsed by UNICEF and another organization called End Violence Against Children. And that's because it is a, an app or a forum in which children can learn how to interact in a positive way. And also, They're safe and they're monitored and they're not accessible to the general public. They're not accessible to any adult. I would have used lots of different parent control apps and, systems on phones and old tablets, but my kids always found a way around it. They seemed to be able to find a way. To disable it or to move around it with, I suppose with cyber smarties, your child is guaranteed to be safe and to learn social skills. So it makes it less stressful for parents. And as well as that, they will be able to access a wellbeing report if they wish. So they'll know about what's going on with their child. So let, before we get onto cyber smarties, just to because I, I. I want to ask a couple of other things to you that might might frame where we're going on this one. I, I'm interested, they're, it may be, maybe it's just the people I surround myself with, or maybe it's just what you hear in the media all the time is that constant battle between screen time, like screen time has seemed to be this enemy of the people of enemy of children until there's a pandemic or even a snowstorm And then everyone needs to be on screens all the time. And in some ways I have this battle with myself similar to what you're saying, that I don't want to disadvantage children. Yeah, or my own child, maybe, but I'm responsible for over 400 children in my school and I don't want to disadvantage them because I know they're going to go into a world where if they aren't using technology and safely and that they're going to be at a serious disadvantage to everybody else around them. And I'm I, up until maybe, social media came along, I would have been in, I would have been a massive kind of advocate for letting children have access to technology as much as possible. But when social media became so clever that it very quickly introduced children to content that I really didn't want them accessing. So again, I'm talking about, what I'm hearing from other parents like that, there seems to be that very quickly boys receive, content that's quite misogynistic and girls receive, information that can be, quite misogynistic, and and I, again it's all these things balancing and I don't know where you stand. And I'm probably asking you the same question in a different way. No, it's not the same question at all because it's a discussion. I meet with parent groups and I meet with school staff and we have discussions. And this question has come up. Why are we giving screens to children? too early or should we stay screen free or can they not learn skills without using screens? But there's probably two sides to every coin. Of course, balance is ideal and it's fantastic and it's very important on so many levels. But some children have social anxiety and difficulty socializing and being able to contact others in a safe way. Through a device can be quite helpful. There's a lot of children in Ireland on school refusal in primary and secondary schools. And it's only through devices that they can access their lessons or that they can access their friends. So it's actually supporting socialization for some children and supporting education for some children. So I do understand though that some children will some families will be worried about the amount of time that children spend on screens. And I accept that. And I suppose as a parent, I'd say it would be our own job to supervise that or monitor that in some way taking into account that parents are extremely busy. Some parents work from home and they have to do zoom calls late in the evening and all that kind of stuff. But there's two different sides to it. There's so much education online. There's so much socialization and positive experiences and positive interaction online. And then we can equally access all of that not online as well. So there's no easy answer, but I suppose balance would be key. Exactly. I want to look at cyber smarties cause I, I want to try and, I suppose it's very hard to do it on a podcast because we can't see it, but we'll do our best. So, maybe we'll look into cyber smarties and maybe tell us a little bit about What it is at its most basic, and we can delve deeper into it after that. Absolutely. So Cyber Smarties is an app that's being used in primary schools in Ireland and around the world, but we'll talk about Cyber Smarties Ireland. So it's an app that's being used to help children to develop self awareness skills, social skills friendship skills, and more. And. When, let's say you decide you're going to sign up fourth class today, you would allow the children to log in and to use the app if you feel like it in school, if you feel like it outside of school. Some schools allow the children to use it for 10 minutes a day and different schools work differently. But what it does is when I log in, if I'm the child. It asks me, how am I today? A little clear, but character does a daily wellbeing check in and the child would say, I'm good or I'm only okay. And when they click on those buttons, the data is collected cumulatively. So over 183 days, if that child attends school 182 days now there's a significant amount of self self initiated wellbeing. material. A lot of the wellbeing material we have on children can be seen to be from the outside assessments of observations of this is the child saying this is how I am today and this is why. And it's broken down into so many levels. So one would be psychological and mental health and wellbeing. One would be social and friendship skills, health and wellbeing. One would be physiological or sensory health and being. So that's one thing that happens. Children are allowed to message their friends within the classroom setting. So not anybody outside the classroom setting. And so they can safely interact with one another. And that's it. That is monitored by a human monitoring staff member, which is why it was endorsed by the Garda Síochána, because any inappropriate attempts at using language, there's a filtration system for language, so it won't allow abuse of language. But if there was something that was deemed to be veiled intent that would be picked up by the monitor. So children are in an environment where they won't be subject to sustained negative interaction. Or negative content. There's beautiful little videos and cartoons. They're all got to do with they're all linked with well being and education. And there's a little fun zone with memes, cartoons, being and resilience content, and gaming, which kids love. And every single one of the games has been analysed by a team who have linked it with the Irish curriculum. So, if you decided to allow children to use some of the games, you'll be able to link it with the maths curriculum because there's a document. with every single game so the parents and teachers will know which strands and strand units of the mathematics curriculum are accessed when the child is playing pirate attack or whatever game they choose to play. What happens here with cyber smarties is because it's fully monitored and endorsed by UNICEF and the guards because it's fully monitored the children are safe. There is no adult that can communicate with any child. Not a parent, not a teacher, nobody. And children learn interaction skills and self advocacy skills as they go along using the app. And what we've seen is, since September, in the schools in Munster, we've seen that Negative psychological well being has decreased, so there's more positive psychological well being, the data shows, through different data pockets. And we can give that data to the schools, saying this is, these are the statistics for this class, these are the statistics for this child. And what we found is a lot of children who live in the country continue to interact over the Christmas period with one another. It's 8 or 9 o'clock at night, it's not accessible when it's time to rest, and it switches itself back on in the morning. So if a child woke up and had a phone in their, under their pillow, they wouldn't be able to use the app. It promotes good sleep, health, and well being. And the aim, short term, is to show children what it's like to communicate with one another and to be let loose. However, it's monitored so things are picked up and reported and there can be corrective actions such as a temporary freeze or notifying you. User 526 in fourth class has attempted to say the following words to user X. That will have been blocked, but you'll be made aware. And then, of course, teachers have asked what do we do if something tricky emerges, and we have to deal with that. We have so many resource materials that are all linked with the Irish curriculum. We have links with the SPHE curriculum. We've written a lovely document linked with the Irish Digital Literacy Framework. So, you can say, see in your planning or in your school improvement plan, or if you were doing school self evaluation on well being, you will actually have statistics to show improvement. So, it's quite a, it's quite a revolutionary app, really. Considering that it's safe is really important. That was really important. Yeah I'm just as I'm listening to you because I suppose I'm trying to learn a little bit as I go in my head that it feels like, okay, we have an inevitability that we're going to be giving a child a smart device. Now, I know some parents might listen and go, no, my child, I'm never going to get them until they're 16 or whatever. That's realistically, I think there's almost like this. 16 is an important age because. Yeah. And if you've had no experience. Not having the experience of knowing how to cope with and manage a lot of input or communicative attempts, people attempting to communicate with you, whether you want to hear from them or not, or children being contacted by others in the other class in fourth year or third year. It does happen. And, Yeah, I think it's also unrealistic, isn't it? That, that It's like I think we all have, I think when, at every age, we have a child who will say he won't be doing this or she won't be doing this. Their child is born, they won't be watching TV until, and then all of a sudden, or they won't be x, y, or z, or whatever it might be. The field of online safety and the discussion of online safety, it can be a difficult discussion because it's lovely to talk about children interacting and learning skills. I felt when I first became involved with Cyber Smarties. Maybe they don't have devices in third and fourth class. Maybe this is a chance for those children to learn new skills, before they'd even developed poor skills. And I know through national studies and international studies that severe or abusive bullying in post primary schools can be experienced by up to one in five children. And so, having had a chance to learn better through Etiquette or netiquette could be quite valuable, and it's difficult to talk about predators, but there are predators accessing children through gaming and chat. And we don't for sure know who may have contacted our children unless we can find out or have a good discussion with them. And it's not to fear monger, but they're very important issues. And there are. post primary schools who are experiencing, school refusal or children engaging in self harm because of bullying and abuse through devices. So having the discussion around Okay, we can ban devices, but at some point, young people will access technology because it seems to be much more prevalent than it was when I was in school. Nobody had a mobile phone when I was in school, and I'm so happy about that. But in, internationally and in the world still, today. And it's a horrible statistic, but internationally in the world today in 14 and 15 year olds, the leading cause of death is self induced and a lot of it is linked with bullying. And so wising up and having the frightening discussion, or Trying to see what we can do to put children in a position where maybe they have a more self advocative role, or maybe they can learn more resilience, compassion, and empathy. And this is why I found it fascinating and became involved, because I was already Doing work that involved that kind of material and delivering webinars and seminars with the same goal. But an app has a much further reach and it generalizes skills quite quickly. I know that when the school subscribed and I met with staff, they were so nice and supportive and had so many questions. One was, how do we tell them how to use it? And I said, Oh, you just let them log in because they will figure the whole thing out really quickly. And they, in order to have friends or to link with somebody in your class as a child under the age of 12 in a primary school in Ireland, you have to send them a compliment out of a list of compliments. So it's like a friend request with the reason why. And that's the beginning of producing an environment where A, children are safe, but B, they are in a position where they are exposed to ongoing and sustained positive interaction. It really has been making a difference in the schools that have subscribed. The statistics show it. So yeah, and not getting a phone for a long time, that will help for a while, not, but it won't last forever. And so where and when do we teach these skills? That's what I began to ask. That's the thing that I'm thinking, that the phone or the device. Is fine until you put not fine things on it. So if, and I think, and this is me hypothesizing a little bit here. We have, a child is inevitably going to get a device at some point, whatever point the parent decides that is. And inevitably the first thing the child just wants to do is download. And some of those apps will be, it will be let's say Snapchat or whatever kicks, whatever kids are using these days or discord. And in some ways, what this is, it's giving them the same experience Of a social platform, but with it almost like a safety net to so so they can, because children will inevitably, and this is a complete, completely away from technology, children are when they're developing and as they're growing, they're going to be experimenting with their behaviors and what they can, what boundaries they can push, what or can I try this interaction and see where this gets me, and if you do that on the likes of Snapchat or Facebook or any of those things, that's a permanent moment. Thanks. Possibly a permanent problem for you as the child or the victim of whatever you've done, let's say, whereas with this app, it sounds like you have almost a safety net where you can, you could, you can try whatever you want, but there's humans safe, humans there to help you keep safe. Would that be, is that, am I describing that fairly? So, if I'm a child in fourth class, and I decide to send, you're a child in fourth class, and I decide to send you a message saying you're stupid. Hey, you are stupid. I can type it out. It will, the app will highlight the word stupid and say, This word may upset your friends. Please find another word. And so there's a negative word filtration system. And some kids find ways of attempting to get around that, which is human nature. We are solution seeking creatures. And this is really why it's important to have these chats. So I might say your s space, t space, u space, so it may pop through then. So the next thing that happens is that there's a human monitor, a person who is paid to monitor the content daily. And so that should be picked up and flagged. And other than that, now that will be done. And that's why it's an endorsed app. You also have the option to red flag that message and a note goes to the monitor. Simon has red flagged a message at five to six on such a date and this is the message sender and receiver. Now, obviously we don't know the name of any child that's Not allowed do so we have reference numbers. So user five, two, so you can red flag a message and it will be picked up, but the monitor will pick it up. And so here's where we look into, of course, the first couple of weeks kids try all sorts. And so it's lively. And we do say that to schools, of course they do, because they're experimenting with it. But this is the first app I've ever known where you're looking at personal responsibility, a little bit of accountability, and awareness of the effects of online content or attempted messaging. on another person. And of course, if we have kids saying, no, I didn't. You did. Here's the screenshot, but accountability and personal responsibility are vital social skills for us to learn. And so it just doesn't happen that a child. Can be bullied or subjected to inappropriate content using the app. It's a good chance for them to learn skills, both me learning skills about how I comport myself, and maybe me learning to have the courage to red flag a message. And I work with the monitors and we discuss findings and There's sometimes messages between user X and user Y saying, I'd like to put a red flag on it, but I'd be worried in case there has to be a discussion around it. I'm not sure what to do about it. What do you think? Those discussions are very important discussions as well. Those are social skills. But if it seemed that it needed to be flagged, of course, it's flagged. And so what's happening is, The subscribing schools are finding maybe we seem to be in need CPD on building self awareness or the mechanics of social skills or something. And then Cyber Smarties, we've developed a bank of resources that are really helpful. And we also have teacher courses. So it's covered from every angle. So I think it's a really good idea to consider it and to look into it or to look at the website or to look at the reports or the white paper or to just become aware of what it is and how it's working. I'm amazed by the improvements in the subscribing schools, even in the last four months. This is, sounding like a really, Interesting app that I think parents will probably be thinking about if they're considering buying their child, their first device and knowing that, their child is probably going to want to socialize with their, with other children that rather than saying you, obviously you'll have to have parental controls 'cause cyber Smartsheet is are not going to stop children from downloading other social media apps. But what I'm thinking of is this app might mean that there's no need for children to download some of the more, some of the less controlled apps. Let's say the ones that are quite da that can be potentially dangerous. Would am I thinking along the right lines there? Yes. Exact. Matter comes up when I meet with parent groups this question comes up. So we subscribe, we, if we get our child a tablet and the school subscribes and we are going to allow them to use Cyber Smarties, are they safe? Yes, they're safe while they're using the Cyber Smarties app. They can chat and game and watch videos. However, if you're going to allow them to download WhatsApp or to play games on the PlayStation 5. That's a totally different matter. The safety of the children and the age appropriateness of what they're doing, that really has to be thought about at home. And so, we have, had discussions around if they want to send something inappropriate, they can just say, Message me on WhatsApp. If the child is under 12, probably, maybe they, it would be better if they didn't have a WhatsApp account, or they're not supposed to have social media accounts under the age of 13. But of course, I know parents are really Busy and I was a parent who downloaded parent controls on all the devices and they do really help I know that there are Ways of a child needing you to give permission for them to download a new app So I would have had to approve the downloading of a new app on my child's device But I actually had to learn how to do that. I had to be taught how to do that. And then also be attentive to, if I'm cooking the dinner and I'm busy and they see that I get a phone call, and I'm busy with the phone call and they start tapping me and saying, mom, I'm just sending permission. This is just to say, no, wait, I'll research it and I'll see. And so, yeah, they're protected. In this place to game and to message online. And there's a post primary version as well that's very fantastic, that's called Hopoko, which is being launched. But no, it's not going to, it's not going to generalize on, on, on a device. It's an app that you can be guaranteed your child is safe on, but if you're going to allow them to use the Xbox, the PlayStation, or other manners to communicate with one another I don't know what they, I wouldn't be able to say what they would do. They wouldn't be protected. Exactly. Yeah, I think it's funny when you were saying what your own kids were doing. They always know when you're too busy to to be able to be concentrated. How likely and then how difficult is it for me to get into their device to delete the thing? Or does that mean, because I think one time I'd given permission. So it was just re downloaded after I deleted it. I wouldn't be as. technologically aware as you, but I know that for me, it was exhausting and tiring and not a fun experience for me as a parent. Quite a worrying thing. And when they move on to social media and have accounts, that's always a frightening experience because you just don't know. And I am aware that even when my kids weren't allowed to have smartphones, they had the old phones. Their best friend had a smartphone and they were looking at content on that phone. So it's quite it's quite an unmanageable feat for us as parents, but there's only so much we can do. We can be vigilant. We can be aware of, filtration apps. We can be aware of parental controls, approving things, physically managing devices. Or looking into an app like Cyber Smarties. Exactly. It's just not the world we grew up in at all anymore. I know, and I'm it's funny because another thing I've noticed, and this is just a, anecdotal more than anything else, is that whenever I've run, internet safety kind of things for parents or, we try and talk to parents about smartphone use, because all schools are, being asked to talk to parents about that and, you put words out. It's funny, the only not, I'm not saying absolutely 100 percent the only parents, but the vast majority of parents who attend these things are parents who probably don't need to attend them or they're, not nobody, everybody needs to, or they've already decided you're not getting their kid a phone or whatever it might be there. And you're trying to get, I suppose what you're trying to do is get to parents who are a little bit more, less savvy and don't know what their kids are doing. And I think even to, it's, it sounds like there are the majority of parents aren't going to be able to prevent their child accessing. A smart device, whether it's their own child's or their friends who has one. Just impossible now. It just feels impossible to manage the situation now. And there's some statistics available with parents as well. Yeah, I think I might've referenced it already, but. This year, 80 percent of parents in Ireland said they do not feel confident that their child is always safe online. And yet it's so hard to avoid the online or the digital world. I would have been the not at all savvy parent and I found it, I found I could never keep up or understand what I should do next. And I don't think I've ever met with a parent group or a parent association where there wasn't a very. It was a very we had parents of very opposite opinions, no phones, no screens, not needed. They're going to get one in post primary at some point. They'll get confirmation money. What happens if they just don't have skills developed? The discussion there's such a variety of viewpoints. But in the end, I just feel the children are accessing devices younger and younger. And it's best to talk about it, regardless of our views, regardless of our feelings and our views and our fears, it's best to have the difficult discussions. Exactly. So this whole campaign to keep childhood smartphone free or whatever it's called at the moment. That seems to from what I'm hearing, it seems to be one of these things of just pushing a tin down the road or kicking a tin down the road for an inevitable It's just pushing it down the road. And the idea of giving them skills is what's, is what we're really talking about. And I know that there's a lot of talks about smartphone free. and not using, devices at all. But then we run into the post primary group who run into significant difficulty in first and second year because there seems to be, there's a lot of children reporting, I don't know how to manage the online situation, the messages I'm getting. The pictures that you're putting up of me, videos being shared about me. I don't know that's going to solve the problem. It'll temporarily pause it. And I know when we talk about, going back to my behavior management background. When it comes to managing a behavior, you can put some actions into place that will temporarily suppress a behavior. So, I don't give them, I've got, let's say I have four kids in primary school. I'm a parent, I will not give them a smartphone, I will not give them a device, and I will not condone access to the online world in my home. I mightn't have Wi Fi. Okay. That's absolutely acceptable. Anybody can choose to parent how they wish to parent. What skills will those children have when they do access the online world, when it comes to resilience and self advocacy? I just feel like when we talk in the years I've talked about behavior. You will only suppress it temporarily. Yes, you don't it's very difficult to totally extinguish your behavior, but you can suppress something But we're best putting rather than reactive strategies putting proactive strategies in place Giving children a chance to develop skills Because confiscating phones in schools, there's never been a higher time, rate of purchase of secondhand phones online. So you got to learn the phone and the phone you hand up. And I would have done the same as a teenager. Of course I would have wanted, I'll do it. And I'd probably have been selling them. Anyway, we'd have done a good business there together. It's not. It's not that, it's not as preventative. It's temporarily preventative. Yeah I noticed, when COVID and the world shut down, that This the, when children didn't go to school for, about a year and a half, there were certain things they didn't get to try out that was, that were like age appropriate. I hate that term, but do you know and natural human interactions that you try when you're five or you try when you're eight and you're seeing some of those things happening, 12 year olds doing things that you try at 10. Or eight year olds doing things that they should have been doing maybe at six that just don't fit with their age anymore. Like And maybe there's a connection there, that if you don't give the children the chance to do risky things, let's say. On in a in a risk free place. Then if they get a. When will that reemerge? Because it does reemerge at some point. I know that, yeah, it's part of normal socialization and human development. I know a newborn interprets the world first through their senses, but very quickly, a young baby, a very young baby will socialize. We want to make our needs known and we want to interact with others from the very beginning of our life and interacting using devices is a huge and globally acceptable now, but the safety of Children is. It's a constant discussion. And I suppose for me, I was just delighted to become involved in with cyber smarties because I'd always worked with education and special education and behavior and wellbeing, and I thought, what about everybody else? Because I love my work and I always enjoyed it, and I always will. But what about everybody else? How do we keep them socializing? Teach them how to be resilient, empathic, advocate for themselves, form opinions learn, probably through an adverse experience, learn how to take personal responsibility when we have misbehaved. We've all misbehaved. said and done things you shouldn't have done. It's, shaming and blaming and isolating is not the best way to go about business if we're if we're dealing with a developing and learning child, but experiencing things, being accountable, being responsible and learning a better way of managing that skill, that's what really intrigued me about the app. I've watched children become more empathic and more. Compassionate towards one another, and I've seen, I've, with, I've had meetings with the monitor, sounds funny to say the human monitor, but I've had meetings with the monitor, and the reports would, the reports generally involve the children are checking in more on one another, but they're also saying, I can't believe XYZ sent me a request. They're being so nice to me. I have more friends than I thought. And that is really music to my ears because involvement, community, a sense of belonging, acceptance. Not just fitting in, but having a sense of belonging and ownership over our future behavior is really important. So I think, I suppose the Cyber Smarties app and the post primary Hopoko version give young people a chance, the best chance to be in an online place where they're safe, where they can, Interact, and they do get support and, corrective action when things aren't going so well as well. It's not about isolating, excluding. This happened on this date, it's not so nice, we might address it and then we try again. It's just, so far it's been lovely and I've really enjoyed the work. And I do feel as a parent, I wish that this existed. 15 years ago, I'd say, I really would have loved it might have it might have helped a lot. Like I do like how it does it forces, children to say something nice about the person they were, they want to interact with and that's seen by, and it starts things off in a positive way. And I almost forgot to say, you reminded me there, Simon, one of the most frequently used buttons on the Cyber Smarties app is a little button called cheer me up. And when you press the cheer me up button, if you're a subscribing child, the nice comments that other children have made about you come onto your screen. So if you're having a down day and I said, I want to be your friend because you're a good listener. And somebody else said, I want to be your friend because you're really good at sports. Somebody else says, I want to be your friend because you're a funny guy. Those comments come up. So I know that. Families report they've pressed the cheer me up button, is that bad? No, it's great. Remind yourself why people like you, this is what we want in CyberSmarties. That's a really nice idea. It's just such a nice idea. Yeah, absolutely. So look, I, we've actually been speaking for quite some time. I could talk more about it. I can talk for three days. Fantastic. I can do three days. And I've really, it's really made me think a lot even about my own parenting and about, as a, as an education, because this is a conversation that schools are going to be having a lot this year as, the I don't know if she'll be the minister for very much longer, but it seems to be in a crusade of Norma Foley's to tackle smartphones. But I feel that she's may, I've always believed she may have been shooting in the wrong direction, really, in a way that. The target really isn't the actual device, it's what's on the device. And this has really made me think a little bit more about how what, rather than trying to kick the tin down the road, that we should be tackling, what an inevitability of this generation and probably the past generation, which we may have messed up by not doing anything sooner. But we but I think that's something that, we will have to think about. The first reaction you had to the smartphone free or whatever, strategies they might, you'd have been selling and, secondhand phones and I would have had a burner phone. So there's ways around those and what we're aiming at is teaching skills, but I suppose this just is a chance to do things a little more differently. It's forward thinking, it's safe, it's, young children have a much more plastic brain than you or I. As fabulous as we are, they're more suggestible. They'll form new neuroplastic patterns in their thinking where they expect to be spoken to nicely, learn to advocate for themselves if they're not, and become used to receiving and giving compliments and Accessing content that's educational, but it's focused on well being. And that's a really important idea, I think, really. Absolutely, I think so. So, I always ask my guests on the podcast what they would do. If they were the Minister for Education, you've basically got one thing that you can do. It doesn't have to be related to internet safety, it doesn't have to be related to social media, it doesn't have anything like that. But if you could change one thing about the primary education system, what would it be? I feel it would be linked with well being and behavior because that has been an area of interest for me for so, so, so long. And the one thing I've always found difficult was pinpointing and assessing well being because it's such a difficult thing to do. So I would recommend that. an app like Cyber Smarties be used even just for a period of time so that you can assess well being when you receive the well being reports in your school. And I, that really would be focused on the, the needs and the rights of children in primary education. But I also feel it would be nice to address well being for the OWL teachers and SNAs as well, because it is an exhausting role. It's a multifaceted role. You're wearing lots of different hats. To do the job well, we have to care about those who are in our caseload and that can be stressful as well. So if I was a minister and I could. Wave a magic wand, it would be well being for all, somehow, with a measurable way of understanding. Are we helping you there, the teachers to do your job better, the SNAs to do their job better. Being assessment for children Would be the magic wand. I'd like to wave very good. It's been absolutely fantastic talking to you, Maren. If people are interested in accessing more about cyber smart cities, Ireland, would you? What's the best way for them to get into contact? You can get in touch by going, excuse me, looking into the website. It's www. cybersmarties. ie. You could email marin at cybersmarties. ie. You'll find a contact email and a contact phone number on the website, but essentially www. cybersmarties. ie and don't hesitate as a parent or as a school staff member to reach out and ask any question, however, big or small, and we'd be more than happy to help out in any way. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Mirren. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thanks for listening to me. It's been a joy. Thank you.

And I hope you've enjoyed this interview between myself and Murren from Cyprus Marci's Arland. I came into this interview, really wearing two hats. One as a teacher who has, is, has an interest in educational technology and a background in educational technology. But also as a parent of a child. Who is eventually probably going to be given as smart as they probably will be given a smart device. I'm still holding on. I'm one of the 7% that was mentioned earlier that hasn't. Given my child a smart vice I'm so scared. Of what could happen. But this conversation has put me in, It gives me some questions to consider, my child hasn't engaged in any social media or social experience online. And am I putting him at a disadvantage? He's not allowed to charge. When he's playing games, he's in a, barely got a game. Game he on he, he plays super Mario. And Minecraft Bush, there's no kind of interactions that out and he doesn't even want to do that. There's no kind of pressure on me, in that regard. But I'm I putting them under a disadvantage when you know, most of his classmates. Are chatting away. Online. And learning how to chat. Or are they learning how to trash, is anyone helping them? I'm asking those two questions, is it, I'm what I'm seeing is what marina and cyber smarter kids does is it provides this platform which gives the children the opportunity. To learn how to engage in social media. So in a way, in a sense, I'm after the question of, am I doing the right Tang by. Having no social media engagement. And trying to teach them in our own way about how you socialize while online, by my own social media interactions and talking to them about who I'm talking to online and how I'm talking to people online. Modeling respectful engagements and things of that. But again, he doesn't see any of that dizzy and so on. So there's a lot of, a lot of questions I have to ask myself. I'm not. And. What is the bond? Is it is. Is it better? That he has that idea that he can interact with his peers in a sort of a walled garden where there is no. Danger of predators. That's a. And outsiders. And the fact that. It's filtered very strongly and by a human. And so on so that if anything does go wrong, that there's lessons that can be learned. So, it's a question I'm asking because the other side of this. Is the other option. There's two other options. One is we continue with this banning of smart devices. Until children are a certain age. And, I'm not quite sure. That's. That's a possible, like at the moment, I don't think there's any parent in the country. That doesn't know that it's, buying a smart device for their child is a good idea, but yet 93% of parents have done it. Simply how do you get from 93% of parents buying their eight year olds? And devices to it being illegal. I think there's, it's a question. I'm not saying that's not a good option. I think it, it is possible. I Ave to go. But I think the last option. So the third option is to continue doing nothing. Which is what we've been doing for the last number of years. I know there's a few. Little voluntary schemes, which I don't think really have any impact. If we're going to. Make it illegal or do something like that. That has to come from a national a national strategy. It has to come from the social media companies themselves. I know Australia have said I've given social media companies a year. And to ensure dash under sixteens, don't use social media. It's an interesting experiment. I think people will be watching how that kind of works out. Social media companies, I imagine. And I'm not saying this. I think their goal is to make as much money as possible. And I would say a huge chunk of their money comes from advertising to children. If I lash my son, play a game on my phone, every minute and ad comes up on the screen because I, we don't, he doesn't, if he plays one of those free games, it's ODS every few minutes and it's trying to sell them another game or trying to sell them a, that kind of thing it's usually seems to be selling, or if he's watching something on YouTube. Every few minutes, there's an odd trying to sell something so I can imagine if you cut off. Advertising or social media for under sixteens. That's going to take a huge chunk of income from these social media companies, but for the greater good, is that something that we should be doing? So. It's a lot of questions I have left from this conversation. I've really, it's really made me think, and I'm still thinking as I'm, as I, A few days after talking to marina. As I'm recording this conclusion and. I am. Drawn. Slightly towards what she's trying to, what's trying to be achieved. Do we need like a D inevitably people will use social media? I don't think social media is going to go away. I don't think how use it is going to go away. A. It's human interaction after all, but it's human interaction behind a veil. And, depending on the social media platform, that can be very toxic or it can be very useful. So it's like comparing Twitter or X at the moment. It's very toxic because of the anonymous. Sort of nature because of the the lack of any filter in of any hate speech and any hate speech that happens tends not to get picked up on or monitored. That kind of thing, or it could be something like a positive place. Like an understanding Dennis is particularly positive, but I'm picking LinkedIn as an example where you aren't anonymous, you are yourself and conversations tend to be professional and. I think a lot of people. If we look at the way people use. Social media. As adults. If it's LinkedIn. At getting jobs, a lot of people got jobs off LinkedIn, which is a social media platform. A lot of people now. Start relationships through social medias platforms like dating apps and things like that. And do we need to prepare our children? For that future? I'm. Part of me is thinking. We maybe we should do we use a safe platform, like cyber smarter kids to do that. Maybe we should. Or do we teach lessons in theory? I don't know. I'm, we always say that it's better to do things practically. So I don't know. I don't know. I'm as I say, I'm left with those three questions. Do we either go down the road of banning? Do we go there into the road of education? Or do we go down the road of doing nothing and seeing what happens? So they're just my thoughts. I'm really pleased. I finally got to talk to Marie and I think this is a conversation that we need to keep talking about all the time. And if you aren't talking about it in your own school, I think it's something you definitely should do because by doing nothing, I think we could be going down difficult paths because we don't have control. Over. What happens? In most children's homes at north Chaudry. For the majority of the day, but we do have to face the impact of what can happen and because of social media use and smartphone use as well. So there's all my thoughts. As I said, thank you very much for listening. Thanks so much to Murren Saudia from cyber smarter kids for talking to me. I really enjoyed it and I hope you did too. And I'll be back again very soon with another podcast. All the very best. Bye-bye.