School hails its social media detox success

Students ‘sleep better and concentrate on studying’

A SCHOOL that brought in a scheme to ‘detox’ pupils from social media is hailing it as such a success that it will be rolled out to most students.

Mobile phone use and online activity had become a huge concern at Gaelscoil Uí Fhiaich in Maynooth, Co. Kildare, and teachers and parents realised it was time to act.

The 58 sixth-class students at the primary school, which has over 472 pupils, began their pilot plan last September, in the hope of getting children back to reading and playing more sports.

And they quickly saw improvements in ‘uninterrupted sleep’ and improved moods in the classroom.

Since then, the school has seen ‘huge benefits’ in terms of Principal: Neil Ó Tarráin pupils’ mental health, with students saying they feel less pressure to post on social networks. They have also noticed an improvement in their attention span for studying.

Principal Neil Ó Tarráin told the Irish Daily Mail that his school is very ‘proactive’ when it comes to educating through technology, but that the social media detox was brought in to teach children about the problems with the internet.

‘We will be rolling out the social media detox from second class right up to sixth class. Some younger children in the school probably do have social media access but we hope that it will be a school-wide initiative that will become part of our school,’ he told the Mail.

‘The sixth-class students saw hugely positive results.’

He added: ‘The school teachers and myself would have a very open and honest relationship now with the sixth-class students following the experiment.

‘The children told us that they said they were finding it much easier to sleep... many of them agreed they were sleeping more and they all agreed that they were reading more.

‘A number of the kids said they had taken up new pastimes in the period before Christmas because they had more time on their hands. A number of the girls said they didn’t miss being “on call”, which for them was the fear of being off social media and missing out on something their friends were doing.’

Mr Ó Tarráin said he was inspired by the initiative launched by Terry O’Sullivan, former principal of Blennerville National School in Co. Kerry, which saw sixth-class pupils have a digital detox last year.

Gaelscoil Uí Fhiaich is not the first school to follow Blennerville’s lead in introducing social media restrictions. Earlier this year, Clarecastle National School in Co. Clare drew up a ‘Family Media Use Plan’, outlining when and where children use the internet at home.

Parents also kept their children’s bedrooms ‘screen-free’ to ensure they got enough sleep.

While Gaelscoil Uí Fhiaich is not going down the same route, it is now extending the social media detox throughout the whole school. sean.dunne@dailymail.ie