President tells of his suicide fear for children going online
‘We just have to face up to it’
PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins will today launch a hard-hitting attack on social media technology, warning of the suicides that have been linked to it, and of the dangers of abuse and bullying online.
He tells Ryan Tubridy, in a special interview this morning: ‘I think that there are real issues with examining how technology and science are delivered in society. I think we just have to face up to it. The idea that you can at random fire arrows, that can in fact destroy life. ‘We have had suicides that have come from this. And the notion, therefore, that somehow or another those who are providing the capacity for this are somehow neutral or somehow don’t have responsibility is nonsense,’ he said. In the wide-ranging interview on RTÉ Radio 1, due to be aired this morning, President Higgins says he is ‘well-aware’ that some technologies were being used to facilitate abuse.
He expresses concerns at growing levels of online abuse and describes the notion that social media giants bear no responsibility for abusive comments as ‘nonsense’.
He says that when he often visits schools, he is told of the benefits of technology but noted how such technologies were also being used to abuse people.
‘The idea that you can send a message without consequence, without taking responsibility for how it falls on the life or perception of another is absolutely a real challenge in a democratic system. How do you deal with this?’
When Tubridy asks if he agrees with some tech giants’ attitudes that they are merely just facilitating communication, similar to a book store, President Higgins disagrees.
‘No, they are not simply platforms at all. They are spaces that are set up, and from which arrows emerge that affect people’s lives.’
President Higgins also noted that he has in the past had to check himself for overuse of his smartphone.
‘Oh, it’s something that I have to watch in myself. I found myself looking at news headlines, but I don’t, I leave it aside now. I think when you look in restaurants [whenever I am out] to see people even on formal occasions with their phones, when in fact they have people each side of them, does tell you something about sociability,’ he told RTÉ Radio 1. ‘There’s something else to it as well and that is the distinction of the book reading.
‘Taking a book with you and remember, if you put a book in your briefcase, the book and yourself engage separately from what you had been listening to, separate to what you have been trained for so it is an opportunity for a certain sort of free reflection.
‘I think the notion, that all those spaces of reflection are just places for the acquisition of information is far, far from being neutral. It’s a real issue and something that should be debated and should be handled. In the end of the day, it is only when people see that this behaviour is a sort of rudeness, you have changed the consciousness to say look, it is there to be of assistance to us, it is there not to be giving offence to those whom we may have invited to have a conversation or have a meal with us.’ ÷ The Ryan Tubridy Show, RTÉ 1 radio, today at 9am