School anxiety has been a thing long before social media came around.

Posted 02/Sept/2026 – By Ross McGann

This one comes from personal experience

Like most kids in primary school in the 90’s/00’s, each week our teacher would give us a list of words that had to learn the spelling of, then on Friday’s we would be tested on how many we could get right. For years this absolutely terrified me, I knew that no matter what I did or how hard I tried that the likelihood of me failing was much higher than passing. By 4th or 5th class this resulted in most Friday morning’s starting with a twisted stomach and an extremely distraught emotional state.

At the time the only additional needs resources that were available were for extreme cases. While my spelling, grammar and languages were very bad my maths, science and spacial reasoning were well above average.

The Diagnosis:

A family member who was studying to become a child psychologist took me on as part of her final year and gave me the assessment. The difference between the languages and maths levels cause her professor to question the results, however after a reassessment done in front of the professor, she confirmed the results were correct and that I did in fact have ”specific learning difficulties akin to Dyslexia”.

The diagnosis was accepted by my secondary school and the little resources available were thankfully provided . I was given the spelling and grammar exemption for the Junior and Leaving cert and when I got to college a reassessment was done and I was told that now what I had was considered just Dyslexia, as the understanding of the condition had been expanded.

Knowing what was wrong and getting the support that was needed helped me to be much less anxious about school, helped me grow more confident and helped me become the person I am today.

Modern times:

My own experience seems to have been somewhat echoed over the decades, I’ve spoken to many people who’ve had difficulties in accessing assessment of needs for children and even difficulties in getting the right kind of supports when finally diagnosed.

In 2026 there are currently about 26,000 children on waiting lists for assessment of needs, with about 20,000 at least 3 months past the statutory time frame for the assessment to happen. This is an issue that has been raised by many including young campaigner Cara Darmody, who has been highlighting the issue with protests outside the Dáil; calling on the government to come in line with their legal obligations.

Barnardo’s “Back to school” report was released today and discussed across both traditional and social media. The report highlighted that anxiety relating to school in children is mainly due to “friendships” and “struggles with classwork”, and “worried about bullying” both at primary and secondary level.

Even with those details being very clear, the comments and discussion seem to have quickly turned to social media being what many think is the only cause of this modern issue of “School Anxiety”. It feels as though all social issues these days are being blamed on social media while many of them existed before social media was even a thing.

Report after report does highlight the negative effects that social media is having on young people, the impact that online bullying has had over the years and the harmful recommender algorithms that the platforms use.

But for people to put the blame entirely onto social media seems wrong. We have failed to properly fix the causes of school years anxiety that existed over 25 years ago, worries over friend ships, school work and bullying remain. Some of the many things that could be done to alleviate some of those worries is assessments being given on time, supports being properly provided, more investment in social and after school programs.

Maybe, just maybe, if we actually deal with the “social” issues that have existed for decades, things like “social” media might not be turn out as harmful.