We have no idea what the impact of smartphones will be on our children
Outspoken broadcaster Ray D’Arcy has branded mobile phones ‘lethal’. But, as a father, his biggest concern is the long-term harm they are doing to the next generation
AS a parent of an 11-yearold girl, RTÉ broadcaster Ray D’Arcy is at the coal face when it comes to children and smartphones. The Radio One DJ has been challenging these issues regularly on his daily radio show and has come to the conclusion that mobile phones are ‘lethal’. He wholeheartedly accepts that issues such as pornography and the targeting of children through mobile apps are prescient. But he also believes that the longterm impact of mobile phones on a generation of our children could prove catastrophic.
‘We have done a lot on the show on this and I have read a good few books on the subject and I live in a world where mobile phones are ubiquitous,’ he says.
‘I think people underestimate how serious an issue this is. I think there are huge issues that we are not even discussing. We are discussing pornography, bullying and screen time. They are hugely important issues and they have to be discussed as well.
‘But the thing I am very interested in is what long-term effects mobile phones will have on this generation. When you become an adolescent and you are getting to know yourself, you are building up your identity. Who you are? Before, you would have done that out in the real world and chatted to your mates. You would have decided that you were funny or sporty or friendly or whatever.
‘You are building up this image of who you think you are and then you get feedback and it is real. Over time you take knocks and you realise that maybe you aren’t the funniest or best-looking but you are who you are. You earn this sense of self.
‘People are now getting this sense of self from a phone and it is a false sense. Because the self they are portraying online isn’t the real person. Then, when they have to deliver that in the real world, what happens? That is a worry. And we have no idea how it is going to affect our children.’
Ray’s daughter Kate has access to an iPad but it is closely monitored. As someone who came from an iconic children’s TV series The Den, Ray laments the lack of homegrown children’s programming too.
He believes that children now get their early identity from imported programming blasted at them through mobile devices.
‘All the things about phones that we hear on a day-to-day basis are hugely important,’ he adds. ‘Kids being targeted and pornography and bullying.
‘But the bigger issue is what sort of adults will this generation turn out to be? What is the knock-on effect? Will it have long-term psychological effects on everyone?
‘I don’t know. I hope not. People are blasé about it and claim that it was the same when they invented TV. But this is seismic. This is like an industrial revolution and we are not paying enough attention to it.
‘Kate has an iPod touch but we are very strict with her and she is very active. She does gymnastics.
‘How do you connect with children now? Kids watch Netflix now and it is on a loop. You don’t have to wait for ads. I think things like Wanderly Wagon and Bosco were hugely important and they became part of what it meant to be Irish.
‘What will children 25 years later have to look back on? Peppa Pig? Although that did serve me well with Tom when he was younger.’
Ray hates to see iPads and phones being effectively used as babysitters.
‘We were on holidays last year and — I think they were an English family — the kids were two, three and five,’ he adds. ‘And the first thing they did when they came down to breakfast was to set them all up with an iPad.
‘That was one each,’ he says, with an incredulous tone in his voice. ‘That’s very harmful. That’s the problem and we just don’t know how it is going to pan out.’
Ray’s radio show, which starts daily at 3pm is now a stalwart part of RTÉ Radio One’s award-winning schedule.
No stranger to taking on big issues, Ray has never shied away from making his viewpoint heard, often resulting in a number of complaints being made to the national broadcaster. But he refuses to let them alter his path.
‘No, I don’t worry about the complaints’, he says. ‘We’ve got loads of complaints over the years, for the radio show as much as the TV show. People listen to and watch RTÉ very critically. And there are people whose sole purpose in life is to watch and listen to RTÉ and to complain.
‘That is not me exaggerating in any way. That is the reality of it. The same doesn’t happen with Today FM on Newstalk or Virgin. People pay their licence fee and feel they have ownership of it.’
Those people aside, the general public have rallied around Ray. The most recent JNLR radio listenership figures showed his Radio One programme increased listenership to 219,000, up 14,000
‘I’m lucky... I have a lot more time with my family’
on the previous survey and a rise of 2,000 year on year.
He says his show has evolved since he first returned to the Montrose campus. And evolution, especially in your personal life, is a good thing. After all, it was through his radio show that he met his wife Jenny.
‘If you listen back to Today FM, the show evolved,’ he says. ‘I remember when I joined Today FM and we inherited Jenny from the show before us.
‘I was very self-conscious back then and I remember saying to Martin the producer that he would have to ask Jenny to leave the studio when I was talking. So you can see how that changed quite considerably over the years — we are now happily married.
‘Shows evolve, people change and we tried a bit of it at the start here in RTÉ and it just didn’t work. It is more condensed and you don’t have the freedom.
‘On Today FM we had three hours and if something took off, we could decide to only play two songs instead of ten in an hour. You just don’t have the luxury of that now. Then Jenny decided — we all decided — she would stay at home. She is having a great time with the kids and they are benefiting greatly from it. We have the luxury of being able to do that. I am very lucky to have that option and we are all benefiting from that.
‘It wasn’t an easy decision and it is her story not mine, but I know that she will definitely come back to something. We are always chatting and she hasn’t switched off when it comes to radio.’
Being on TV can be the ultimate goal for many a presenter but for Ray, his priorities revolve fully around his family. He works hard but spends as much time as he can at home.
And after a brief chat with Gay Byrne recently, he won’t be giving up his nights to attend red carpets or theatre openings.
‘Six days a week working is not ideal, but we do the best we can and it’s not going to be forever’, he says.
‘I bring Tom to swimming lessons on Saturday morning. I am with him until 12pm. I drop him into school every day bar Wednesdays. Most evenings I am home before 6pm and they don’t go to bed until 9.30pm.
‘I have a lot more time with my children than a lot of working couples do. I am lucky that way — I don’t have a big commute and I just don’t do things in the evening.
‘I was talking to Gay Byrne the other day and he said he regrets how much time he spent in RTÉ. Gay was the presenter of The Late Late Show but then he used to go to the theatre or a movie once, twice or three times a week. And all that time adds up. So I say no to most things —I did one thing in September outside of work and that is it.
‘Sundays are sacrosanct. Everybody knows it. I cook a curry in the evening and we go for a family walk whether they like it or not. I find myself getting up at 8am with excitement, even though I wouldn’t have got to bed until 2.30am.’
It is clear from talking to Ray that he is a creature of habit. He has learned over the years that when it comes to live TV, routine is his friend.
‘I do the same thing every Saturday because I am boring’ he admits. ‘I remember reading a book years ago when I studied psychology and it explained to me that the more that you commit to habit, the more space you have in your brain to do the other stuff.
‘If I commit all the mundane stuff on a Saturday to habit then it frees up my brain to be myself on live TV. I go for a run at 12pm on a Saturday and write the intros in my head.
‘I come home, have lunch and then go into the office in the spare room. I write all the cards out and that takes me up until 4.30pm.
‘I am in RTÉ for 5pm and then we have another briefing meeting and then rehearsals. When they finish I have a cup of coffee, a banana and a Natasha’s raw bar and then I am ready for live TV. I do the same every week.’
That routine extends to his aftershow wind-down.
‘You don’t switch off after live TV. I might have one drink in the green room and then go home and watch Netflix or rugby,’ he says.
‘Last week I went home and watched the Leinster versus Munster match — I flew through it and then I watched Money Heist on Netflix. A glass of wine and a bowl of crisps and that’s it.’
Ray prides himself on making his Saturday night chat show an extension of his radio show. He likes to focus on storytelling, and mixing community and real-life issues with some glamour. And he soon realised that being one of the few live chat shows globally would play to his strengths.
‘There is something surreal about live TV and I think that is why people love it. There is a bag of recorded things — you could argue that many of those great shows from around the globe are recorded.
‘Graham Norton isn’t live, Jonathan Ross, Jimmy Kimmel — they are all recorded. We have to play to our strengths and the fact is that there are no chat shows in England that are recorded live. They don’t do them live any more. That is one thing that we have going for us.
‘It means that anything can happen and it often does. Last week Marty Pellow forgot the words to his song and he kept going. I love that.
‘And we had Rosemary Smith the racing driver giving out that her neighbour’s gutter was leaking — that would never happen in a recorded situation.
‘We can’t compete with Graham Norton — we can’t even compete with The Late Late Show when it comes to celebrities.
‘So we have to go down our own path, bring people into the studio and create a situation where people can be relaxed and just have the craic.’