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The release of the hit Netflix drama Adolescence this month has unleashed a wave of panic around teenage boys. Keir Starmer said the UK “may have a problem with boys and young men”, while parents began worried conversations about their children’s online lives. But how true to life is it?
Michael Conroy, who has been going into schools to train teachers and professionals about boys’ personal development for years, says he has seen a shift in what he hears about. “Just 10 years ago, we didn’t have young men speaking in very sexualised ways to female teachers, quite a few in the same school.” He sees the ubiquity of pornography as a huge factor, with boys as young as 11 using it obsessively. “I’m getting invited to work with primary schools now.” The knock-on effect, he says, is an unrealistic and sometimes dangerous attitude to girls and relationships.
To find out what boys themselves think, Helen Pidd went to a sixth-form college in Manchester and spoke to five pupils about the pressures, difficulties and joys of being a boy. They told her about what they think of receiving unsolicited pictures, friendships with girls and why, when it comes to the views of influencers, “a lot of it is just rubbish”.
