When mobile phones first came out, I was slow to get one as I was working at home and didn’t think I’d ever need such an unnecessary luxury. Those were the days when the phone charger was the size of a couple of shoeboxes and call costs were prohibitive.

I eventually succumbed and was bowled over by the sheer convenience of this new device. I could let people know I was running late without having to find a phone box, hope it was working and that I had sufficient change to make a call.

Apart from its prime function as a phone, the mobile also had a game called Snake which I managed to complete (giving me huge credibility with my children and their friends). I well remember one of the first jobs I had for what was then called Section 2 in the Irish Farmers Journal was a survey of mobile phone ownership and usage by fifth-year classes in secondary schools. I had no problem holding their attention once I showed them my Snake score.

Those were innocent days when all you could do with a phone was send a text and make and receive calls. Giving the children mobile phones was a big decision. In our case, the older two got them when they were in the early stages of secondary school, while Richard coaxed his mobile out of us when he was still in primary school.

I insisted that there were no locks on their phones and I had no problem picking them up and scrolling through their calls and texts. I knew who they were meeting and talking to in the real world, so I wasn’t about to change the rules when it came to their phones. The same rules applied to laptops and computers. If they wanted to go online, they did it in the kitchen and nowhere else.

When I’d say this to some parents, they were aghast that I was so blatantly invading my children’s privacy. That didn’t bother me one bit and I continued to be nosy – although I prefer to call it responsible – until they headed off to college. Looking back, those were innocent days. Nowadays, between social media, apps and photographic capabilities, mobile phones are technical wonders when used to the good. But sadly that’s not always the case.

In his column this week, Damien O’Reilly highlights the different standards that apply to online commentary as compared with print, radio and TV. The level of verbal abuse and downright bullying that passes for comment on social media is rightly being called out. But what concerns me even more is how mobile phones are being used when it comes to teens and pre-teens. To think that a little girl or boy can be groomed, cajoled, coaxed and maybe even coerced into meeting adults they don’t know is frightening. That they are induced to send intimate photos of themselves to strangers is downright scary.

As a newly minted nana of a darling little girl, I dread to think of what she could be open to in the future. Her parents will need to be ever-vigilant. But they will need support. Free speech comes with a price attached and that price is responsibility – something the giants of the online sphere have been slow to shoulder. CL: