Adolescence
reveals a terrifying truth: smartphones are poison for boys’ minds
Martha Gill
When a
Netflix drama highlights how online influencers can turn a teenager into a
killer, it’s time to rethink social media
Sun 23 Mar
2025 07.00 GMT
Every so
often, a television drama comes along that has the power to change things. Last
year, it was ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office, in which the plight of
subpostmasters was rendered with such success that it actually hastened in
real-world legislation to compensate them.
And now we
have Netflix’s Adolescence, which looks at the online radicalisation of young
boys by men’s rights activists (MRAs) such as Andrew Tate. Last week, Keir
Starmer told the Commons he had been watching the series with his family and
that it portrayed an “emerging and growing problem” that needed to be tackled.
Now MPs are examining ideas to address the issue with greater urgency.
It probably
shouldn’t work like this. Policy decisions would ideally not hinge on the
quality of an actor’s performance (Adolescence had some spectacular ones, which
explains its success), and whether politicians manage to catch the latest
Netflix series. It makes us look a little emotionally incontinent, as a
country, when the decisions of TV drama commissioners weigh quite so heavily in
our politics. But the fickle spotlight of political attention has landed here,
for now.
The issue of
rising misogyny among young boys, fuelled by online influencers, has long been
troubling. If we are approaching a point that action might be taken, that is a
good thing. But what should that action be? There are, roughly, two lines of
thought.
One is that
the problem stems from an unfulfilled need among these young men – a lack of
guidance, or self-esteem or of other men on which to model themselves. That was
the central contention of Gareth Southgate’s Dimbleby lecture last week. He
talked of an “epidemic of fatherlessness” and the fact that boys are spending
less time at youth centres and sports events where they might have met the
kinds of aspirational figures Southgate looked up to: coaches, youth workers
and teachers. Without this, he said, boys are driven on to the internet
“searching for direction”, where they stumble on role models who “do not have
their best interests at heart”.
As tech geniuses devote their brainpower to
keeping people engaged, algorithms are getting smarter, and online life more
exciting
The other
argument is that the poison starts and ends with the influencers themselves:
these men are so compelling they can radicalise boys who are otherwise well
looked after and have plenty to do. This is the thesis at the heart of
Adolescence. Its central character is a boy drawn into MRA culture, which
eventually persuades him to kill – but he also comes from an ordinary family,
with a loving father and many male role models around him. There is no trauma
in his life, no abuse. As the writer, Jack Thorne, puts it: “He comes from a
good background, like me; he’s a bright boy, like I was. The key difference
between us? He had the internet to read at night whereas I had Terry Pratchett
and Judy Blume.”
Proponents
of the first idea want investment in youth centres and mentoring programmes,
and to encourage more men into teaching. These notions have much merit, and
would of course be good on their own terms. But as a solution to the problem of
misogyny among radicalised schoolboys, I lean more towards the ideas offered by
the second school of thought: getting them away from their smartphones.
Here’s one
indication that youth clubs may not be the answer: online culture is not merely
compensating for the real world, but outcompeting it. As tech geniuses devote
all their brainpower to keeping people engaged, algorithms are getting smarter,
and online life more exciting. I’ve previously written about the similarities
between social media and casino slot machines: both use league tables, points,
lucky streaks and rewards to get the dopamine pumping and keep us hooked. A
survey last week of 14- to 17-year-olds found 40% spent at least six hours a
day online – the equivalent of a school day. This is not just about a lack of
other options. These platforms take the stimulus to socialise – recognition,
inclusion, approval – and gamify it to an addictive level. Why spend time with
your friends or go to community centres when online culture is more rewarding?
There’s an
argument, too, that spending large chunks of your life online itself creates
the preconditions for the kind of radicalisation offered by the “manosphere”. A
central trait of MRA culture, for example, is that followers are obsessed with
their status. But that fixation is also fuelled by social media platforms
themselves, which revolve around improving your social standing and projecting
it to others. That is one difference with real-world socialising, where
overconfidence tends to be kept in check.
In the
offline world, a dent to your ego can be laughed off; online it can be
devastating, and longer lasting. This makes people brittle and insecure. No
wonder there is an exploding online market for self-improvement and self-help,
which MRA influencers tap into – promising young men routes to status and
approval.
Add to this
the fact that the internet is a grievance machine, feeding users content that
will enrage them and opinions that match their own. And now enter Tate and his
ilk, with a package of promises: status, female attention and a target for
resentment. You can see why this might be hard to resist.
Is it time
for the government to restrict teenage access to social media? A bill that
campaigners hoped would ban addictive smartphone algorithms aimed at young
teenagers was watered down earlier this month; that may have been a mistake.
France, Norway and Australia are experimenting with smartphone and social media
bans for children and teenagers. It may be time for us to do the same.
Martha Gill is an Observer columnist
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