Showing 'Adolescence' in schools may make the problem worse
The hit Netflix show has been made free for schools to show. But evidence suggests that making teens watch it won't inevitably fix the problem of toxic online influences. It could do the opposite
A unique feature of school in Wales is the Eisteddfod1, an annual contest that celebrates Welsh culture. People compete in all manner of events, like essays, poetry, clog dancing, musical performances, and more.
However, by the 1990s when I was in school, the ancient traditions of the Eisteddfod had been modified to adapt to modern sensibilities. Hence Welsh clog dancing became just dancing. The electric guitar was added to musical recitals. And so on.
But one year in our school, some (presumably-well-intentioned) teacher decided that what would really get the kids enthused, was a rap contest.
If you’re thinking that state schools in the former-mining communities of South Wales in the 90’s aren’t an obvious hotbed of hip-hop tendencies, you’d be correct. And incredibly diplomatic.
But it gets worse. The mandated subject of this rap contest? “Drugs are bad”. Because if any genre’s associated with powerful anti-drug sentiments, it’s rap.
Hence my fellow teen students and I ended up watching some of our more ‘bookish’ peers (the sort who’d volunteer for the Eisteddfod), dressed as a 1990s middle-aged British teacher’s idea of what rappers looked like2, spitting the most plodding and painfully cringeworthy anti-drug rhymes ever to (dis)grace a stage.
One verse is burned in my memory. As the clunky beat played over the PA, our aspiring MC declared:
“Don’t do drugs
Drugs can kill
Smoke and dope can make you… IIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL”
At this point, I remember thinking, for the first time in my life, “I would really love some drugs right now”. And I wasn’t alone in this.
What has any of this has to do with the fact that UK schools can now show the smash hit Netflix drama adolescence for free in a bid to curb the deadly influence of toxic online influencers on teenage boys?
I’d say it has everything to do with it. As it’s an example of adult efforts to dictate an important lesson to teens, that backfired spectacularly. And I fear that’s what could happen here.
An acclaimed drama is not the same as an effective teaching aid.
I’m not saying that the issues raised by the hit Netflix show Adolescence aren’t valid. They very much are. Toxic online influencers sucking young men and boys into extreme and dangerous beliefs and communities is a very real issue, and a growing one. ‘Adolescence’ has brought this issue, and the potentially devastating results of it, to the forefront of the national conversation.
So much so, that the creators have met with the Prime Minister, and the show has been made free to screen for UK schools. There is much talk about making it compulsory viewing in schools for teens, particularly boys, to help prevent them going down the same route as the child star of the acclaimed drama.
However, even if we assume everyone involved has 100% good intentions, this is, for many reasons, a bad idea, and one that could make the situation worse.
Fellow neurobod, co-Guardian Science Blogger, friend, and intellectual superior (especially in this area, if you read his book) Professor Pete Etchells has outlined his concerns with this. So has my BBC Sunday Morning Live Debate tag-team partner.
They, and many others, have raised many valid concerns, such as:While the issues raised are real, the events in Adolescence are fictional, and never really happened. And teens are smart enough to know this.
Adolescence is rated 15, and many of the students who’d supposedly see it are much younger. Kids seeing content that’s not age appropriate is usually something these concerned adults object to?
As good as it is, the show offers no answers or solutions to the issue, or provides any advice on how to deal with it. It basically just says ‘this is a problem’, in a compelling but lengthy way.
Most schools barely have enough time to teach what they’re obliged to anyway. Where is a 4-hour drama meant to be squeezed in?
All these, and more, are very valid concerns regarding the potentially-mandatory showing of Adolescence in schools.
But here’s an issue I’ve not seen raised elsewhere; the fact that this approach fundamentally misunderstands the teenage brain and mindset, and could easily backfire and make things worse.
You can’t tell me what to do!
During our adolescent years, we gradually pull away from established relationships and familiar hierarchies, and are compelled to seek out new connections, and develop our independence.
To put it more succinctly, your typical teen doesn’t like being told what to do by adults. It’s part of the ever-changing makeup of their brain. It’s how we learn to become an adult.
Logically, there are many times when teens should listen to older, wiser types who have their best interests at heart. But that’s not how it works. Even if you’re objectively right, simply barking instructions at typical teens isn’t an effective way of conveying your point to them, let alone convincing them. Consider the widespread failure of countless anti-drug campaigns. And that’s not even including making kids rap about them!
Basically, if you force teens watch Adolescence, you risk flipping any positive impact they may gain from doing so. Because that’s just how it is to be a teenager.
I actually posted this observation online (in a far more truncated form) earlier, and got some interesting responses. The most common of which were as follows.
“But this is a real problem!”
I’ve no doubt it is. Young men being radicalised by violent misogyny is a genuine issue in modern society, and needs addressing. That’s why I would strongly advise against doing anything that could make it worse.
“Well what’s YOUR solution?”
At present, I don’t have one. But an effective solution, I predict, would include opening actual, respectful discourse with the teens. They’re not unthinking beasts (despite how they’re often portrayed), they’re smart and thoughtful individuals with minds of their own. The most successful efforts at resolving intergenerational conflicts are invariably some form of discussion and negotiation, not enforced commands from those who hold the power in an already fractious dynamic.
But even so, me not having a clear solution doesn’t mean we should press ahead with an intervention that could realistically cause more damage. That’s not how anything works. You don’t go throwing petrol on a fire just because you don’t have any water.
“Public information films worked back in the day!”
Sure, public information films were clearly quite effective. I’m still paranoid about abandoned fridges on waste ground, despite being 42 and never once encountering such a thing.
But they’re not exactly the same thing. What is essentially a terrifying ad of a few minutes, aired between broadcasts of things kids do actually want to watch, revealing the mortal peril of things they may have considered benign, that’s a very different beast to a four hour drama about a subject that most teens will at least recognise, that they’re made to watch during school hours. The element of surprise is lost, if nothing else. And that’s particularly effective.
“But I know teens who DO want to watch Adolescence!”
Which is great. If they want to, more power to them.
Adolescence may be very good indeed, and many teens may actively want to watch it. But that last part is key; want to watch it. It’s their decision. If that decision becomes a command, one that takes four hours of an already frustrating school day, whatever message Adolescence could have conveyed to the actual adolescents will be heavily coloured by this context.
Basically, teens wanting to watch it is a very different kettle of fish to forcing teens who don’t want to watch it, to do so. If anything, the more obvious targets for this effort would be young men who feel disenfranchised, rejected, and frustrated by their lot in life. Whether this is justified or not, having the usual authority figures tell them “We think you’re going to be a murderer, so shut up and spend 4 whole hours watching this fictional show that tells us how dangerous you are”? That’s probably not going to have the desired outcome.
I get it. It’s a hot button issue, and people want a solution. But a solution produced by middle-aged adults discussing their fears with other middle aged adults probably doesn’t guarantee the desired results.
Have you ever met a teenager?
This plan(?) to make kids watch Adolescence in schools reminds me of another experience from my own teen years.
As my school’s token male nerd, I often ended up being a point of contact between my peers and adults who were trying to ‘help’ us.
In one instance, I ended up in a local council meeting where prominent members of the community discussed the many issues facing daily life in our area. One of which was, in this instance, the many teens wandering the streets ‘being menacing’3, and so on. Myself and a few similarly geeky (and therefore, non-challenging) friends had been roped in to provide the teenager’s perspective.
We explained that we wandered the streets because we had precious little else to do. We were regularly chased out of public places (i.e. the lack of third spaces) due to the very possibility that we’d deter proper adults who might spend money that we didn’t have. So, what else were we meant to do?
If only we’d had some sort of technology that allowed us to socialise in the comfort and safety of our own homes! Then adults would have had no reason to worry and would have left us alone to our own devices. Literally.
[Looks to camera, sarcastically]
The adults at this meeting nodded approvingly, made many supportive noises, and then, after much discussion, came up with a solution. A community magazine, that would tell disenfranchised teens what they should and shouldn’t do, that they could also contribute to (within reason).
Despite my shy temperament at the time, I felt compelled to interrupt the backslapping going thanks to this genius solution, and emphasise that it wouldn’t work. Because I knew for a fact that none of the frustrated, disenfranchised teens I knew, many of whom were good friends, would respond positively to such a thing.
Like all teens throughout human history, my compatriots weren’t just ambling around waiting for some mighty adults to provide instructions; they instinctively wanted autonomy, independence, novel experiences, and strong bonds with their peers. These are key features of how the human brain develops, and changes from childhood to independent adulthood.
Practically all the things we teens craved were perpetually denied us by the increasingly restrictive adult world, that we had no choice but to inhabit. A locally-produced magazine did not seem like a magic bullet, or even a sensible, logical way to deal with this.
My concerns were dismissed, though, on the grounds that this magazine wouldn’t be made by teachers, but people from the community. Which… had nothing to do with anything I’d said.
But then, what did I matter? I was just a teenager.
And here we are again, but on a much larger scale. Adults talking to other adults about what ‘the problem’ is with modern teenagers, agreeing with each other that “something must be done”, and arriving on a solution that they like, that appeals to their sensibilities, and their logic.
You know what none of the reports about this that I’ve read include, or even allude to? The perspective of teenagers. The ones directly affected by the issue, who would be on the receiving end of any interventions meant to provide solutions.
Teens are once again not being treated as active participants in a serious matter that affects them more than anyone, but more an inconvenient problem that wise-but-concerned adults are meant to untangle by themselves.
And while this is indeed a tale as old as time, here is an issue where it could seriously backfire.
I don’t have any concrete solutions, but I did write a book about this exact issue, for teens. Check it out.
Eye-Steth-FoDD, for any non-Welsh readers who found our language and words a bit perplexing. Which would be most of them, in my experience.
Think dayglo jackets and backwards baseball caps, ‘shades’ (sunglasses, indoors, in Wales, in March), and, for some reason, flip-flops and a bum-bag. It was a weird time.
This isn’t an exaggeration. We had a whole school assembly where we were all chastised for “beign menacing”, i.e. wandering around in groups, talking to each other. The very existence of teenagers was apparently intolerable for many in the neighbourhood. Little has changed since then.
I still argue that putting on an episode of Married At First Sight Australia, even if it’s just the TikTok clips, and engaging the kids in an open conversation would be a more effective use of their time than forcing them to watch Adolescence.
> "We think you’re going to be a murderer, so shut up and spend 4 whole hours watching this fictional show that tells us how dangerous you are."
It'd've probably been better, had they outright said that. What exacerbates the situation is the dishonesty of making it look like the people of relative authority have your best interests in mind, when all they want is to deter some behaviour. I feel like teenagers can see well past that. Dishonesty feels more insulting than a stern finger-wagging.