'Social media is far from social' Leitrim councillor would welcome ban in Ireland

It was reported this week that France intends to follow Australia and ban social media platforms for children from the start of the 2026 academic year.

The ban would mean that children under the age of 16 would not be allowed to have social media accounts. 

Leitrim councillor, James Gilmartin said that "Ireland are keeping a close eye" on the issue of social medial. "In principle, banning isn't always a good idea but I think in this case, it's a very proactive step. Social media is far social; I call it unsocial media. I think children are getting phones from an early age and are on these online platforms which is creating their worldview and a lot of it is also dopamine-related."

READ MORE: Planning application submitted for upgrades to community centre in South Leitrim

He stressed: "I would be in favour of a ban of social media for under 16s. All the studies indicate that it has huge affects on young people's mental health, their anxiety, their sleep patterns. Low self-esteem is also a massive issue; they are seeing all these pictures online of people who are Photoshopped and believe that that is how they are supposed to look all the time."

He said that he believed that viewing inappropriate content can have an affect on growing children. "It's that stage of life, that I'd have a big concern about. You also have harmful content, predators and all the rest and inappropriate material and pornographer; the elephant in the room is industry - you have big social media providers such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and they're responsible for their content but they are not held to account."

READ MORE: Cold snap causes Leitrim school closures as weather warning extended by Met Éireann

Cllr Gilmartin went on to say that he will be following the ban in Australia with "a lot of interest" and added that when the legal age for smoking was raised from 16 to 18, this impacted on the amount of teenagers who took up the habit. "While younger people did smoke, it was that much harder to do. It will be the same with social media; there are always ways around it but we are trying to protect our youth and I do think a ban on social media would be a positive step."

Cllr Gilmartin concluded that it was important the parents practise what they preach. "We all have phones and it's easier to give a child a phone than maybe take them outside etc. We need to take that into account as well."