At Skerries Community College in north county Dublin, principal Kevin O'Riordan's desk drawer has a habit of catching him off-guard, by ringing. Inside the drawer is a pile of mobile phones confiscated from students. "In a number of cases where I confiscate a mobile phone, I contact the parents and they say: `Keep it, the thing's a nightmare, we don't want it,' " he says.
In religion class at Skerries Community College, two students were caught sending each other "grotesque" pornographic text messages - and that was probably just the tip of the iceberg. "You have to be quick to catch it," says O'Riordan. The annoying thing about text-messaging, he says, is that a student can do it with one hand under the desk without looking at the phone itself. "You can be looking at a child while he is text-messaging a friend and you cannot see," says O'Riordan. And because the phones vibrate rather than sound a tone, "you're completely snookered." Those anecdotes aside, mobile phones are "only a nuisance" and there are situations where having a mobile phone is essential for a student, O'Riordan believes. Fewer than 5 per cent of students have permission to have mobile phones at Skerries Community College, where the policy is that to be in possession of a phone in school, students must have written permission from parents explaining why they need one. Then they must use it only outside school hours or risk confiscation.
In many second-level schools, mobilephone ownership is far higher - ranging from 50 to 80 per cent. Mobile phones have become an intrinsic part of the average Irish young person's initiation into independent living - but not all parents are happy about it. From the point of view of the teenager aged 12 and up, a mobile phone is a lifeline without which social death would rapidly ensue. It's not unusual to see three teenagers sitting together on a sofa silently watching TV, while text-messaging each other as if they were on different continents.
Text messages - which cost 10p each - are a cost-effective way to use a mobile phone, if messages are kept to the essential ones. Fifteen-year-old Lara Hickey - a student at the High School, Rathgar, Dublin - reckons that her Ready to Go mobile costs her £10 per month. "I think most teenagers - who have to live within a budget - use mobile phones more sensibly than most adults," she says.
"I think she may be right," comments Patrick Potts, headmaster at Dublin's Gonzaga College. "Mobile phones are a fact of real life and kids reflect real life. They are the way forward and we can't stand in the way. Overall, they are good in that no child is ever isolated from a parent." But should your 10-year-old have one? Fionnula Kilfeather of the National Parents Council also believes that mobile phones become essential to the personal safety of children and teenagers, as soon as they are old enough to travel to and from school alone, which may be in primary school in some cases. The reality of Irish family life today is that most parents are out working and rely on mobile phones to keep them in touch with their children. Psychologist Rosemary Troy - mother of five and grandmother of one - is also a mobile-phone advocate. For health and financial reasons, no one wants to see a child glued to a mobile phone on a continuing basis, but there are psychological advantages to learning to use a mobile phone in a responsible way, she says. Learning to budget and set limits around the phone should be seen as an opportunity for personal growth.
"The idea of giving your child a mobile phone would strike a lot of people with horror, because any of us who have had kids and have lived with teenagers and adolescents will know that they are very good at turning a phone bill into the size of a small country's debt.
Suicide averted
"There are also difficulties around the health aspect, and I don't think anyone has proven conclusively that there are no dangers from mobile phones. So we want to be cautious and not seeing young people glued to them on a continuing basis. "But the great advantage to giving your child a mobile phone is the personal-safety aspect, in terms of parent or child being contactable. You cannot track your child, but having the connection and link can be of psychological import," she says. "I know of at least one possible suicide attempt which was avoided because the person in question phoned home at the last minute," Troy says.
For parents, the goal should be to help the child set firm limits around using the phone responsibly, without being dictatorial. "Sometimes teaching accountability is something we are not very good at," Troy says. This makes mobile phone use as much a challenge for parents as for children.
