We started Boys v School with the problem: working class boys are falling behind their more affluent peers at every stage of education – and the attainment gap has held for the past quarter of a century.

It was a pleasure to sit down with Professor Noel Purdy, Dr Andy Hamilton (Taking Boys Seriously), Pastor Will Warren, David Magill (from Dreamscheme NI), and of course, Jay and Carl, to explore why the problem exists and what we can do to turn the tide.

But now, it’s time for some conclusions!

(If you haven’t yet, I’d encourage you to listen to the four-part series on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.)

So, what have I learned?

Well, at least this:

1. Foundations matter – Parents and grandparents have a huge influence on the early formation of a boy’s value of learning, as well as his vision for what school is for. Early educational experiences stick with boys. If they are falling behind in primary school, that is likely to continue. One of the negative impacts of the transfer test is that many pupils arrive into Year 8 feeling like academic failures. Their self-confidence as learners is often seriously knocked – and needs to be rebuilt.

2. Disadvantage matters – Every working-class boy has his very real but unique mix of disadvantage – usually a combination of poverty, family conflict or separation, intergenerational trauma from the Troubles, the selective education system, and even views of masculinity that clash with learning. The problem isn’t that working-class parents don’t value education. They do. They just often lack the skills and confidence to navigate the education system. One of Will Warren’s observations was that working-class young men need support long after they’ve left school – as they deal with setbacks and need encouragement to keep going. The lack of representation in higher education means working-class young men can doubt whether they can make it through. A connected issue is that in many working-class communities, anyone who is ‘successful’ in school and work very often leaves – and pulls the ladder up with them.

3. Friends matter – The one piece of advice that Jay would give to his 13-year-old self is to make better friends. A number of things seem to be going on in relation to peers. The desire to build or keep their image as “the funny guy” leads many boys into conflict with teachers. What seems like “just banter” to boys is “bad behaviour” to teachers. Working-class lad culture also tends to run a mile from anything that appears academic. Boys will often dumb down in front of their peers to avoid being seen as a nerd – despite being personally bright and curious to learn.

4. Curriculum matters – Perhaps the most common reason why boys switch off in class is because it feels boring. Professor Noel Purdy stressed the need for a curriculum that gives teachers more flexibility to adapt to boys’ interests. That will very likely mean more hands-on learning, less textbook reading, and more interaction and competition. Education pathways also matter. For many working-class boys, university is not the right choice. Schools need to give equal validation to alternative pathways – such as vocational courses at FE colleges, as well as apprenticeships, which often provide more meaningful work for boys.

5. Masculinity matters – Boys need to feel that they are welcome at school. Yes, they need to learn the limits of physical play and the boundaries of banter. But rather than the constant message of “Stop that” or “No”, they need to hear the constructive message of “Not now, but later,” and “Not here, but there.” There should be times and spaces in the school day for fun, high energy, physical exertion, competition, and risk-taking. Boys will be boys – and the education system needs to embrace this good reality.

6. Relationships matter – As boys enter adolescence, the need for respect and genuine relationship grows. When they are patronised or treated like children, they often simply revolt. The teachers who take time to ‘get’ the boys will be the teachers who get the boys’ attention. Key to this relationship is understanding their context – and connecting learning with where they are and where they want to go. But if we want to see more working-class boys thrive in school and raise their aspirations, it’s going to take more than relational teachers. We need adults everywhere – especially ordinary men in the community – to speak into boys’ lives and encourage them to take themselves seriously.

7. Vision matters – For too long, we have passed on a narrow vision of education and it isn’t motivating working class boys. We need to give them a better answer to the fundamental question: What is school for? Boys need to hear that education prepares them for living a good life, not just getting a good job. They need to hear less about grades and more about how education helps them become better men, better fathers, better leaders.

A final word

I’ll wrap up this series with a parting message from Professor Noel Purdy that didn’t make the final cut of Episode 1: Boredom is the Enemy:

“We need more people working with boys and more people committed to investing in their future. Unless we do that, they're going to be left by the wayside. We can see that in the statistics already.

I'd be very concerned that there are too many very talented boys and young men who are dropping out of education, dropping out of training, dropping out of employment, who have tremendous talent.

So if anyone's working with those young people at risk of disengagement, I would say be creative, be innovative within the boundaries of your particular working environment, and focus on respect and relationship with those young men that you're working with. And I'm sure that that will reap rewards.”

For further thought

There were some topics we didn’t touch, that may also have a role to play in the Boys v School puzzle. For now, I’ll pose them as questions and leave them with you:

• Work – Boys seem to respond well to hands-on learning. Should we be offering earlier work experience opportunities or apprenticeships?

• Vocation – It there a broader loss of meaning in the world of work? Have we lost a sense of vocation? Is this connected to a broader spiritual crisis in society?

• Male teachers – What’s keeping males away from teaching? Salaries? Stress? Status? Safeguarding fears?

• Technology – How are smartphones, gaming, and social media affecting boys’ ability to focus, learn, or persevere? What’s the impact on sleep?

• Rites of passage – In other cultures and throughout history, boys often had clear rites of passage – becoming a man at, say, 13. How did that shape their motivation to achieve and contribute?

• ADHD – how much is this causing working class boys to disengage in class? What explains the rise in ADHD diagnoses, and is there anything we can do to reverse the problem?

If this series has raised questions, or if you have a perspective I haven’t covered, I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time,
Stephen

‘If you hang around with two drinkers, you'll become the third. If you hang around with two smokers, you'll become the third. If you hang around two people who want to do well in life, you'll become the third.’

This is the wisdom that Jay shares at the start of our fourth and final episode of Boys v School.

It introduces another vital piece of the puzzle that we’ve been trying to put together – of why working class boys are falling behind in school and what we can do about it.

In The Roots of Aspiration we look at how boys’ closest social relationships shape their values, identity and vision for the future.

Along the way, we hear the experiences and perspective of David Magill, a youth worker and mentor at Dreamscheme Northern Ireland. David grew up in Belvoir estate, but was one of the boys who engaged in education right the way through from school. He now supports boys every week and adds a lot of value to our investigation.

You can listen to episode 4 on Spotify and Apple Podcasts:

I hope Boys v School adds a unique Northern Irish perspective to the wider conversation about working class boys and education. If you have found the series helpful, please do share it onwards!

In my next post, I’ll share a full reflection on the series, including what I’ve learned, what themes still need to be developed, and other insights from my research interviews that didn’t make the final cut of the documentary.

Until then – thanks for listening, and to all the new subscribers, welcome!

Stephen

Chapter 3 of Boys v School is here: The Class Divide.

In this episode we explore the unique issues and barriers facing boys from working class communities as they experience school and step into adulthood.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts:

Episode Introduction:

So far in Boys v School, we have focused on issues related to working class boys being boys.

In episode 1, Professor Noel Purdy stressed the need for school curriculum to be more flexible, engaging and relevant to boys’ needs.

While in episode 2, Dr Andy Hamilton explained why boys thrive when teachers and youth workers show respect and take the time to build a relationship.

In episode 3, we now turn our attention to another part of the puzzle – the issues related to working class boys being working class.

I start the episode with these words:

“As we try to make sense of why some boys fall behind in school, we have to talk about environment. Specifically, we need to talk about class. Because when you look at the data, it's clear it's working class boys who are struggling most.”

The data is indeed clear.

Consider some of the observable attainment gaps that we can see in the GCSE data for pupils gaining at least 5 GCSEs (A* to C) including English and Maths:

1. Boys v Girls: Between male (70.6%) and female pupils (76.1%), there’s a 6% attainment gap.

2. Protestant v Catholic: Between controlled controlled non-grammar schools (53.6%) and Catholic maintained non-grammar schools (62.2%), there’s a 9% gap.

3. FSME v NFSME: Between FSME school leavers (56.5%) and NFSME school leavers (82.3%), there’s a huge attainment gap of 25.8%!

If you don’t already know the jargon, FSME = eligible for free school meals and NFSME = not entitled to free school meals. Pupils are eligible for free school meals if their parent receive social security support for low incomes.

A quick scan of the three attainment gaps and you can see why we need to be understanding the context of working class boys (and in Northern Ireland, especially those from Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist communities) – they are right at the bottom of the attainment charts.

In episode 3, The Class Divide, that’s what I aim to do.

I hope you find the episode helpful.

In this episode, we investigate the importance of relationships and respect in boy's experience of school.

Jay and Carl continue to share their story, while Dr Andy Hamilton shares some of the learnings from the University of Ulster's 'Taking Boys Seriously' research project.

Listen to the series on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

And please share this with others who want to either understand or support boys better.

In chapter 1 of Boys v School, we hear the stories of two young men, Jay and Carl, whose experience of education was riddled with detentions, suspensions and a bad reputation.

Interestingly, they both cite boredom as a major reason for switching off in the classroom. As Carl shares in the episode:

"I couldn't just sit there so I just had to act out get kicked out of class ...

Of course, there are other root causes for boys’ disengagement and underachievement, and we’ll get to those later in the series. But in this episode, we slow down to understand why boys feel education is boring and what could be different.

Thanks to Professor Noel Purdy OBE, from the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement (Stranmillis University), who helps us understand some of the challenges teachers face, what systemic changes need to be made, and how teachers can stop learning from being so ‘boring’.

To find out more about Noel’s research, you can visit here. Noel also chaired the expert panel that produced A Fair Start, an action plan on educational underachievement in Northern Ireland, which can be read here.

Listen to Boredom is the Enemy on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

There’s a pattern I’ve seen play out time and again. 

A bright kid from the local estate starts first year with enthusiasm and shows real interest, ambition and ability. Like David – a 11 year old boy I knew, who wanted to be a teacher. Or Steven, a boy in my first year class who got top marks in Geography. But then, as time passes, something goes wrong. 

Enthusiasm, interest and educational aspirations … they dwindle, then disappear. And the boy mentally checks out of school. He stops attending class – or else stops everyone else from attending to the lesson. 

I remember sitting in our first floor office at Dreamscheme, and seeing lads walking the opposite way to school, sometime around 10.25am, like Jonah on his way to Joppa. 

Of course, the lads were wrong for beaking off school. They do have to take responsibility for not taking school seriously. But it’s not all on them. The more I have explored this issue of why working class boys are disengaging from education, the more I’m convinced that the whole community has to take responsibility too. The reason? We haven’t been taking the boys seriously. 

For the past 20 years the attainment gap between working-class teens and their more affluent peers has hovered between 25-30%.

The concerning thing is that we’ve been trying to solve this issue for the past 20 years. That’s two decades of politicians, reports, projects, funding rounds – yet no real shift. The same cycle, the same outcomes. 

When you dig into the data, it’s always working class boys who are at the very bottom of the charts. They are the least likely group of pupils to attain basic GCSE qualifications or progress into further education. Look at the following table, for example. Only 40.3% of boys eligible for free school males achieved the benchmark for ‘achievement’.

I thought it was time to investigate the problem for myself. 

So I packed my podcast mics into a box, wrote down all the questions I wanted answered, and hit the road.

Over the past six months, I have sat down to talk in depth with researchers like Professor Noel Purdy from the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement, and Dr Andy Hamilton from the Taking Boys Seriously research project, as well as youth workers, pastors, and perhaps most importantly, two young men called Jay and Carl.

The result is a new audio series called Boys v School that weaves together stories, insights and practical ideas to help us take boys seriously so that boys, in turn, will take education seriously. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed making this. I hope you enjoy listening.

Boys v School premieres on Thursday 22nd May. Subscribe wherever your get your podcasts. I’d love you to follow along.

Quite unusually, I did not have a TV in my house growing up, just a computer. Wide screens and high definition film were thus a complete novelty to me. So, when my mum took us to the local shopping centre in the late ‘90s, my brother and I would end up standing outside the window of Dixons electronics store, mesmerised by the massive screens playing Sky Sports ads or movie trailers on loop. There we stood, for the next 20 minutes or so, basically hypnotised, until mum returned with the groceries.

Fast forward to the present day and I’m glad to say that I’ve broken the habit of standing transfixed in front of shop windows. However, visual media still holds the power to hypnotise me.

I’ve been reading Marshall McLuhan’s book ‘Understanding Media’, in which he speaks about the numbing effect of “hot” media like films and photos. I’ll let McLuhan explain his own term:

“A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in “high definition”. High definition is the state of being well filled with data … hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media, are, therefore, low in participation.”

Marshall McLuhan

I know we’re entering the philosophical realm here, but stick with McLuhan for a bit longer.

He goes on to say that “hot” media – that is, any media that floods one single sense with maximum data and leaves no room for participation – has a numbing effect on the audience: “the hotting-up of one sense tends to effect hypnosis.”

That’s why I say that certain kinds of visual media still hold the power to hypnotise me.

And it seems to me that these “hot” mediums are more hypnotising than ever.

The development of the “auto-play” function in Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and the like, means that we can can be hypnotised for hours, as one episode after another floods our sense of vision in full, data-packed, high-definition.

“Infinite-scroll” on social media has the same effect. Content endlessly loads, creating an uninterrupted stream of visual data. Again, it’s easy to be hypnotised.

We lose track of time. But we lose more than that.

1. Our ability to observe is numbed

The stream of content hitting the back of our brain via our eyes means we know all sorts about the world. We have a sense of world events, of ‘what’s happening’ and what’s trending. But as we absorb the unending barrage of visual news and data, we lose the ability to look around and observe what’s happening or what’s at stake in our immediate context. With eyes plugged in to some device, we miss the emotion in other people’s faces and the colours in the clouds, we forget our neighbour exists and we become deeply uninformed about the needs on our doorstep – problems that we can actually help fix.

2. Our ability to feel compassion is numbed

As the visual onslaught continues, I find that my sense of compassion is numbed too. Our visual exposure to suffering is unlike anything our ancestors had to face. Scroll through video shorts of any social media platform and it is shocking the amount of pain and death and violence that you will see.

In raw HD, we are exposed to video after video from war-torn or disaster-struck regions. Hungry children. Orphaned children. Explosions. Injured men. Drone footage of war. We get a direct feed of it all.

At first it is traumatic. Then we become numb. We stop feeling for their plight because there is a limit to our emotional response. We can’t feel for every suffering soul in the world, after all. And so we casually scroll from comedy clip to the depths of suffering to a podcaster mocking the other party’s leader.

3. Our ability to imagine and create is numbed

In her post for After Babel, Freya India writes this:

“Now we are raising children in imaginary worlds and at the same time killing their imagination. That’s the real cruelty about this. Kids today have their imaginary worlds generated for them … Children are playing together less, replacing free play with screen time, and creativity scores among American children have been dropping since the 1990s. Part of that may be because children now depend on companies to be creative for them. Their imaginary worlds are designed by software engineers.”

Looking back to my TV-less childhood, the main blessing was that my imagination was stirred and stretched during the first 10 years of my life. I needed to imagine my own stories and create my own worlds. Because none were spoon-fed to me.

My brother and I were participants in the creative endeavour, we were the main characters of our own adventures. Not a member of the audience.

In the garden, we acted our part in some make-believe story. The broken climbing frame became a pirate ship. The wooden summer house that my Dad had built became a castle, then a school, then a space ship.

When we were tired of running around, we would sit on the floor or upside-down on the sofa, reading a book – our minds engaged, imagining the worlds that words only partly described.

Our senses were never over-loaded. The whole experience was never 100% downloaded or received in full, high definition form. We had to fill in the gaps of whatever story we were reading or hearing or acting out.

Guarding our Kids from the Visual Onslaught

As I reflect on all of this, with my own children in mind, I’m convinced we need to limit the exposure of the next generation to this onslaught of visual media.

I want my children to be participants in life, as they grow up. To notice the wonder of the world around them: the birds, the clouds, the sunset, and all the fascinating people who pass by. I want them to be explorers and inventors and storytellers. And I want their sense of compassion to be stirred, not dulled. I want them to know their neighbours, to care about their community, and to visit that sick lady around the corner.

In short, I want them to retain hold of their senses.

To have eyes and be able to see.

On Monday, I found myself standing at a bus stop in the centre of Belfast. The bus service was particularly slow. I’d been standing for ten minutes. A group of teenagers stood near me, also waiting for the bus. But they were not watching for it. Nor were they looking around or talking to each other. Instead, their heads were down, their attention captured by a flickering rectangle in their hand.

As I watched them, I could start to feel the compulsion to reach for my phone too. I’d just forced it into a pocket a minute ago …

~~~

I know I’m not the first to write about the smartphone’s capture of our attention, but I do want to think about the challenge of how we raise our children in a world where distraction has never been easier.

We live in the so-called Attention Economy. Since the rise of the internet, our eyeballs have become a valuable commodity. The more attention a platform can capture, the more money it makes, usually from advertisers who want to reach a captive audience.

The challenge for tech companies and advertisers is that our attention is, in fact, extremely limited. Researchers estimate that the brain can only hold about four things in its working memory at any given time. Try listening to two conversations at once! Our time is also limited. There are only so many things a person can pay attention to in a day.

The limits of our attention combined with the rewards for capturing it has resulted in intense competition. Ambitious tech companies have had to work really hard at figuring out how to get us hooked on their platform. And over the past decade, I’d say they have pretty much cracked the code.

How attention is captured

In his book ‘Hooked’, author and investor Nir Eyal explains how tech companies build habits by attaching their services to our daily routines and emotions. He points to four steps involved in hooking attention and keeping us engaged online:

1. Trigger – these can be (1) external triggers like notifications, push alerts or recommendations from other social media users, or (2) internal triggers: like boredom, curiosity or the need for validation.

2. Action – This is what users do in hope of getting a reward, like scrolling through a feed, liking a post, commenting, sharing, or creating content. The platforms have made all of these actions low-friction (e.g. double-tap to like a post and auto-fill text).

3. Variable Reward – Content is delivered in an unpredictable way so that users never know what will appear next. Social rewards (e.g. likes, comments and new followers) also occur unpredictably. All of this keeps us hooked.

4. Investment: The more time, effort or personal data that users put into the platform, the more invested we are. We feel they have an audience to nurture or a personal narrative to keep going.

Who is in control?

With this level of intentionality being invested the design of social media and tech products, the unintentional user has no chance!

I think that is really significant in relation to young people. Tech is training them to live on auto-pilot, to mindlessly engage with online platforms, letting notifications, trends and recommendations direct their next action. When young internet users are not living with any sense of purpose or agency, their attention will be captured in no time, and their whole experience of life will be orientated around that six inch rectangle in their hands, or some other captivating device.

How to take back control of our attention

I’m glad Nir Eyal has written not just about hooking attention but about how to take control of our attention. In the introduction to his second book ‘Indistractable’, he writes this:

“In the future, there will be two kinds of people in the world: those who let their attention and lives be controlled and coerced by others, and those who proudly call themselves ‘indistractable’.

Nir Eyal

The ability to focus is a critical skill we all need to learn in the Attention Economy. We need to teach our children how to choose where to direct their attention and how to guard their attention.

The key to focus, however, is more than fixing the phone. Phones have only made distraction easier, but the real reason we can’t stop scrolling is a human one. “Distraction starts from within”, says Nir Eyal.

I’d actually describe it as a spiritual problem.

When we lack inner peace, we will recoil from silence and want to escape from reality of our own worries, stresses and bad experiences.

When we lack inner purpose, we will lack both the discipline to say no to short-term gratification and the drive to focus on tasks of long-term value.

Eyal agrees on this point about purpose: “You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it is distracting you from.”

I think this something worth thinking about with the young people we are walking beside. There are so many good questions we can ask to help them find their ‘why’, like:

• what work am you fitted for?

• what kinds of friendships would you love to build?

• what kind of person do you want to become?

• what do you want to learn in the next year?

• where would you like to be in six months? In five years?

The more we can help the next generation become young men and women of forethought and purpose, the more they will be able to resist the siren call of the smartphone and instead channel their focus to people and tasks worthy of their precious attention. And with more careful focus will come a richer experience of life.

The same applies to us.

I’ve been reflecting on my own experience growing up with tech, the internet and social media. It’s crazy how much has changed in 30 years.

I reckon it was 1993 when we first got a computer. I was about 4. It was one of the old Apple computers. Big and bulky. I remember the car journey back home from Lisburn: six kids stuffed in the back of the family wagon, and a massive box somewhere in the middle of us all.

We were so excited. The computer came with stickers of the old rainbow-striped Apple logo. We kept our Mackintosh in the older brothers’ room and my main memory of it was pushing in floppy disks to play Prince of Persia, Lemmings, Crystal Quest … they were good times. But there was no internet. This was a personal computer not yet tethered to everyone else’s computer. The Mac was very cool but also very limited. That is the key word.

Limited.

Kids growing up in the 1990s had limited access to computers and a limited choice of content. We had ‘computer time’, usually a couple of hours before or after dinner. We could only play the dozen games our parents bought us at the store. And it was just the family computer. It wasn’t a gateway to the world.

Not yet.

By 2001, we got rid of the old Mac. The new computer was a serious upgrade, but most significantly, it was connected to the internet.

Through my teenage years (2003-2009), this new world of online media and information became part of normal life. But for the first few years, things were still pretty limited. If you wanted to watch a football tricks video, you had to download the MP4 first, then wait for the magic of Ronaldinho to load. At first, social media didn’t have any videos – or viral content, for that matter. You just got a feed of what your friends were posting, in the order that they posted it. There were no Shorts or Reels or infinite scrolls. There was just a lot of clicking as you slowly surfed the net.

But the limits to connectivity and content dramatically soon reduced. By the time I was 16, I wasn’t limited to the family computer. WI-FI had replaced the need for wires and now I had a laptop in my room. I also had a smartphone in my pocket. I was online most evenings, and increasingly throughout the day as mobile data increased. YouTube was in full swing and Facebook was the place to be.

By the early-2010s, as I was stepping into adulthood, we were in a very fast and increasingly unlimited Internet age. The first decade of my life had been almost entirely unconnected from the internet. The second decade, had been consumed by it.

Despite the real struggles of being part of the first generation of Internet consumers (most of our parents had little clue of what was going on), the current generation of children face a different and far more intense kind of challenge.

They are growing up in an Internet age that has few limitations.

Unlike the computer of the 1990s or early 2000s, the computer of the 2020s (most commonly a smartphone) is a now an incredibly unlimited kind of device. Consider the following:

We have unlimited access. Crucially, our computers are no longer wired to some wall. Enabled by wifi, cellular networks (like 5G) and, more recently, satellite broadband (e.g. Elon Musk’s Starlink), we can go online anywhere and anytime. Not just when the family PC is available, for a couple of hours after dinner time. That means the kid with a phone can be online in bed or on the bus. It means the online world lies waiting for them 24/7. And when there is no end to the possible sources of entertainment or thrill, it’s no surprise teenagers are on their screens all day and aren’t going to sleep. FOMO can keep you up all night. Some of the girls we work with in Dreamscheme are on Snapchat 12+ hours per day!

We have unlimited choice. In the 2000s, my menu of games and films was limited to the CDs laying around our computer desk. And even in the early days of online video, films were limited to those available on Netflix. Images were limited to what Google could find in their search engine. But the choice has been accelerating over the past decades and is on an exponential growth curve. As of 2023, estimates suggest that the total amount of digital content on the internet was over 120 zettabytes (1 zettabyte = 1 billion terabytes). In two years, that figure is projected to rise to 175 zettabytes. On YouTube, over 500 hours of video are uploaded every minute. Instagram users post about 95 million photos and videos daily, and over on TikTok, more than 3 million videos are uploaded every day. The internet offers the modern teen pretty much anything they can imagine. And they will soon be able to get what they want without even searching.

With AI generated content, it is now possible to turn a text prompt into any image or video you can imagine. Curiosity will be the only limitation on content. As these tools upgrade over the coming years, there will basically be no limit to what content a person will be able to consume. That is both exciting and, for anyone attempting to raise children, absolutely terrifying.

Finally, the computers in our hands today give us unlimited access to other people. It is estimated that 5.18 billion people are currently connected to the internet. That’s 65% of everyone on planet Earth. The computer has shifted from being something to share with your siblings or best friend in the privacy of your own home, to something we share with billions of people. Our devices and computers are gateways – into the minds of all manner of people, both good and evil.

From the comfort of his own bed, a 13 year old with a smartphone and no safeguards can talk to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. The people influencing them are no longer limited to those they know at home, school or at church. Anyone in the world can now become their role model without even knowing their name.

Of course, the internet is here to stay, and opens up all kinds of opportunities for young people. The latest insights and the best ideas of history are in our pocket. It is the modern Library of Alexandria. The potential relationships we can build are far greater than our ancestors. The fact that I can video chat my friend in Norway is an incredible gift. Economically, the internet also opens up huge opportunity for young people, in terms of remote work, e-commerce and creative businesses. And we shouldn’t underestimate the good times that the internet provides.

I for one am grateful to be alive during the age of Memes.

But all that being said, we adults need to think far more carefully about how we help young people grow up in this hyper-connected world.

13 year olds are not ready for unlimited access to an unlimited choice of unlimited content. It is a recipe for disaster, whether you want to think in terms of mental health, physical health or soul health. Nor is it safe to let them roam through an online society, free to meet anyone, open to anybody’s influence.

Where do we start?

At the very least we need to be teaching our young children wisdom and discernment in relation to how we behave online. We probably need to think about the ages and stages we allow our children access to certain kinds of devices. We need to be talking to teenagers about their life online in the same way we would ask about their life at school. And we need to remember the value of limitations.

We all benefit from healthy boundaries, and our children certainly will. That might look like time limits for internet use, using parental controls or a physical box to store phones after a certain time of day. It might look like a limit of apps we allow on smartphones. It might mean coming up with some rules or rhythms for your family. You could have regular times when everyone unplugs and disconnects – perhaps a day a week or a week every year.

We also need to invite our children back into the life-giving limitations of the real world around them. Have feasts with candles and music and good food – just the family or some friends. No one else. Explore your neighbourhood. Sure, there are hidden gems all over the world, but there are special wee spots to be found within a few miles of you. I’m sure of it. Serve in your community. Discover what help you can provide. Work in your garden. Make something with your hands. You get the idea.

Let’s encourage our children to embrace where their feet are and then to both enjoy and serve the world that is physically in their reach. And then to use the magic box called The Internet with purpose and a lot of care.

I think this will be one of the most important things we will need to grapple with going forward:

When should we give our children the keys to something so unlimited as the Internet and how can we prepare them to use it wisely without getting sucked in, soul and all?

Share Rethinking Youth

One of the most valuable things we can do, as we work to support young people, is to introduce silence into their lives.

It’s a noisy world. Minds are over-loaded with information, ears are bombarded with sound. Nothing stops. News feeds have infinite scroll. The next video auto-plays, music is on loop and group chats ‘ping’ all day long.

Silence has become so difficult to find. Yet we cannot flourish without it.

I’ve been thinking about why silence is so vital to our health and growth. What is interesting is that the argument for silence can be made from both a scientific and theological point of view.

Science and silence

Researchers have found that silence relaxes our body by reducing heart rate and blood pressure (2006 study). Silence also stimulates brain cell growth in the area of our brains linked to learning and recall (2015 study). And it’s even been found that silence boosts oxytocin levels, which is typically linked to warm, fuzzy feelings and shown to lower stress and anxiety (2021 study).

Faith and silence

From a Christian perspective, silence is the companion to prayer, meditation and growth. Without silence, we cannot know ourselves and we cannot begin to know God. Silence is where the soul finds peace, perspective and inner joy.

In the life of Jesus, he habitually stepped away from the crowd and activity into places of silence and solitude – the wilderness, the mountains, the garden. These were times of silent, hidden prayer. They were pauses before public activity. They were often periods of preparation.

Let’s bring these two perspectives together:

Without silence, our minds are in danger of becoming overwhelmed, our bodies, of becoming tense and our souls, of becoming shallow.

The fear of the vacuum

Silence, though vital for development, can be intimidating – especially for young people who have not cultivated the habit of quietness.

In the silence, left alone with our thoughts, we must confront reality, which is often painful. Pain, regrets, sorrow are waiting there in the vacuum.

Yet, young people need encouragement to embrace silence and wrestle with their thoughts. For the sake of their own wellbeing and growth, young people need to retreat from the noise. And we need to help them make this a habit.

How to introduce silence

A simple place to start is to encourage moments of silence in our conversations. This is something personal coaches do all the time. They know that silence is the one thing that people need to process their own situation and think about their future.

As we work with young people, we serve them by asking searching questions like ‘why?’ and ‘how? and ‘what else?’ and then shutting up and encouraging them to reflect in silence. We can aid this further by creating quiet environments when we mentor (e.g. turn the phone off, close the window, dim the lights).

Encourage special times of silence

Another idea is to encourage young people to plan a quiet time first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Or else talk about how you find silence in your own life. Our example is usually more powerful than anything we say.

Creative Idea: get young people to imagine and illustrate a no sound and screens night along the lines of this one by journalist and cartoonist Malaka Gharib:

In my last post, I highlighted the need for us to encourage young people away from screens into community. As we do this, we also need to invite them into times of silence. For the sake of our body, mind and soul, we need to seek both relationship and solitude.

Young people are far more lonely than I realised.

The issue came up in a conversation with some youth workers at Dreamscheme. We were reflecting on the concerns emerging from mentoring sessions in local schools, and one youth worker highlighted a major issue with loneliness.

Another worker fully agreed: “Last week was half term. I’d have been out playing football with my mates all week long. But when I asked young people what they did, almost every single one just said, ‘nothing’. They literally sat in their house all week, on their phones or playing video games.”

All were agreed that a growing number of the young people in our care are low on confidence and are extremely anxious about making friends with new people. One worker pointed to the pandemic as a possible cause.

“I suppose they’ve lost two years of learning how to communicate. Now it’s keeping them from talking to new people.”

The conversation got me thinking. Loneliness used to be primarily associated with the elderly - why is it now that young people are feeling lonely?

Why so lonely?

Loneliness happens when there is a mismatch between the quantity and quality of social relationships we have, and those we want.

This is one of the key insights from the work of Daniel Perlman and Letitia Anne Peplau.

The concept of this discrepancy helps us understand why being alone does not necessarily mean being lonely. An elderly widow living alone may be quite content with her few remaining relationships. A 16-year-old girl may be surrounded by peers in school, have hundreds of connections online, and yet still may feel lonely.

According to multiple surveys, young adults are now the loneliest age group in the UK.

For example, in the Community Life Survey for 2020-2021, people aged 16-24 were more likely to say they feel lonely often/always (11%) than every other age group (3-7%).

Figure 1. The Community Life Survey is a household self-completion survey (online survey, with paper survey for adults not digitally engaged) of adults aged 16+ in England

What surprised me, however, was that youth loneliness is not a new, post-Covid problem.

Youth loneliness has been a growing problem over the past decade

In 2018 (pre-Covid), the BBC published these findings from their online survey called the ‘Loneliness Experiment’:

Figure 2. Findings from Loneliness Experiment, a survey of 55,000 people.

Another graph from the USA shows the decline in time spent with friends by age-group over the past 20 years. During the period 2018-2020, the Gen Z line was in free-fall:

Figure 3. Daily average time spent with friends. Graphed by Zach Rausch from data in Kannan & Veazie (2023), analysing the American Time Use Study.

One reason for this decade-long decline in face-to-face relationships is technology.

Commenting on the Time with Friends graph in a recent post, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes:

‘…look closely at the line for the youngest group, ages 15-24, in blue. This age group used to spend 2 hours a day hanging out with friends because these are teens and young adults. Most are students, few are married. So 2 hours a day with friends was the norm right up to the time when teens traded in their flip phones for smartphones, in the early 2010s.

Once they did that, they moved their social lives onto a few large social media platforms, especially Instagram, Snapchat, and later Tiktok. They were spending vastly more time online, even when they were in the same room as their friends, which meant that they had far less time for each other (in face-to-face interaction or physical play).

I suggest that this is why the effect of covid restrictions on teen mental health was not very large: Gen Z’s in-person social lives were decimated by technology in the 2010s. They were already socially distanced when Covid arrived.’

Those last two lines are worth repeating: ‘Gen Z’s in-person social lives were decimated by technology in the 2010s. They were already socially distanced when Covid arrived.’

Despite its considerable benefits, technology makes it too easy for young people to retreat from real time, face to face friendship.

The more time spent scrolling or gaming, the less time young people spend building confidence and making friends in real life. The danger is that young people reach adulthood without building the real-life social skills they need to form quality friendships, navigate work relationships and contribute as a good neighbour in the community.

Look up and say hello

More than ever, we need to call young people away from their screens and towards rich, three-dimensional community. It is here, face-to-face or side-by-side, that young people will find the cure for loneliness. The company of a few true friends will satisfy their hunger for relationship in a way that a 10,000 connections online cannot.

It is also in real-life community that social skills will flourish. The practice of talking to new people will build the confidence to talk to more new people. In the habit of conversation they will learn the art of conversation.

To be honest, we all need this challenge. Instead of retreating into the perceived comfort of our phones, we need to step out and engage with people right in front of us: the neighbour in the morning, the person in the queue, the stranger on the bus. And we need to prioritise the practice of conversation to maintain old relationships and make new ones.

As Adrian Chiles put it, “Loneliness is awful – so every day I try to start a —conversation with a stranger”.

For encouragement to be effective, it needs to be based on the truth. Otherwise, it is merely fluff and flattery.

We were talking about this at work last week. One of our youth workers, Stephen, shared a good illustration from his days playing football:

After a poor performance, which I’m assured was rare, his coach would pat him on the shoulder and say, “great game, son”. Of course, Stephen didn’t believe him. The truth was: he could have played better. But instead of acknowledging the reality, his coach attempted encouragement with empty positivity. It didn’t work. Words that aren’t true rarely help anyone.

Examples like this abound. Every day, people are congratulated, celebrated and affirmed as ‘great’, amazing’ and ‘the best’ for no good reason other than we like to keep things positive.

Single people are told, ‘you’ll find the one soon’. But the reality is they may remain single all their life. Those struggling with infertility are assured, ‘you’ll have a baby some day.’ The crushing reality is, they may never conceive. To face their frustrations and disappointments with courage, they need to hear more than well-meaning sentiment.

Encouragement that is received

How can we ground our words in reality to ensure our encouragement is received?

Critically, we need to think about about the reasons for our encouragement.

Any time we are about to speak, it's worth asking the question: ‘why should they believe my words?’

To illustrate, consider the famous psalm of David:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I will fear no evil,for you are with me;your rod and your staff,they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4

Notice how David does not stop after the words, ‘Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil’.

He continues, ‘for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me" (Psalm 23:4).

Encouragement that works …

1. Acknowledges the reality of the situation: 'even though I walk through the darkest valley'.

2. Points to solid reasons that give courage and comfort: 'I will fear no evil for you are with me'.

3. Speaks in specifics: 'your rod and your staff, they comfort me'

When it comes to youth work, we do teenagers no favours when we ignore the fact of their poor performance or physical limitations or difficult home life.

And as we seek to give them comfort and courage to face their challenges, we need to make sure that our words are grounded in reason and reality.

If young people don't believe our words, they'll not receive our encouragement.

The need for words with foundation is all the more important when it comes to how we talk to young people about their understanding of themselves and their sense of worth.

There’s an old saying: Prepare your child for the path, not the path for your child.

The path of life, then, with all its twists and turns, needs to be in our view when we are thinking about how best we can support the next generation.

As we seek to be intentional, we must ask questions about the path that lies ahead of each young person in our care, for example:

• What obstacles may they need to overcome in life?

• What pressures are they likely to have to endure?

• What responsibilities will they shoulder?

If we do not keep the whole of life in view as we raise the young, we’ll be short-sighted and shallow in our approach. It’s a shame to think that young people may spend years in a youth programme having fun, yet walk away with little to help them when in later years they face suffering, start a family, or navigate the stresses of work. Unfortunately, this is too often the case.

We live in an age where a spirit of ‘safetyism’ prevails. Health, comfort and personal happiness are some of our most prized possessions. It is no surprise, then, that the modern teen is more likely to be over-protected from the challenges of life than prepared for them.

We over-protect children and young people …

1. Emotionally: when we shield them from hearing alternative view points for fear that they will be ‘triggered’ or when feelings are never challenged.

2. Socially: when we step in to solve their relational conflicts or make that difficult phone call for them.

3. Physically: when stop them from climbing trees or roaming out of our line of sight.

To be fair, over-protection is a natural instinct. The world can seem like a more dangerous place these days, and in many ways it is.

Over-protection comes from a place of good intention. But, unfortunately good intentions don’t always do the job. In ‘coddling’ the next generation – to use the language of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt – we are in danger of sending young people into a storm without so much as an umbrella.

As Lenore Skenazy, president of Let Grow (a non-profit promoting childhood independence and resilience) puts it:

“By trying to keep children safe from all risks, obstacles, hurt feelings, and fears, our culture has taken away the opportunities they need to become successful adults. In treating them as fragile—emotionally, socially, and physically—society actually makes them so.”

Or consider this from a piece on ‘The Fragile Generation’ by Haidt and Skenazy:

“If they don't develop the resources to work through obstacles, molehills come to look like mountains.”

Boston College psychology professor emeritus Peter Gray was once invited to speak at major university on "the decline in resilience among students".

"We have raised a generation of young people who have not been given the opportunity to … experience failure and realize they can survive it,” said Gray.

Writing in his 2013 book Free to Learn, Gray pointed to the huge importance of something we moderns under-value: unstructured, unsupervised play.

"Nothing we do, no amount of toys we buy or 'quality time' or special training we give our children, can compensate for the freedom we take away. The things that children learn through their own initiatives, in free play, cannot be taught in other ways."

My Take:

Our challenge today is to think more about how we can prepare young people for all of life, not just for university or their first job.

Key to this will be letting go of some control, even taking some risk.

Children, like us, learn best by doing. And that often means without our supervision.

By letting go some of our control, we give our children invaluable opportunities to grow.

By empowering young folk to do hard things and endure difficult situations, we give them the gift of experience. And from such experiences, they will build capability and confidence that will serve them well on Life’s path long after we’re gone.

David, one of my favourite characters of Biblical history, serves as a great illustration.

What would have been lost had he never roamed the hills of Bethlehem as a young shepherd? What if his father had been at hand to fend off every threat? How else would he have been prepared to face both king and giant with such courage?

I had never thought about the contrast between “character” and “identity” until I read an article this week by the journalist Lionel Shriver.

This part got my attention:

I submit: the traditional concept of “building character” is out the window.

Once upon a time, a fully realised person was something one became.

… Maturity was the result of accumulated experience (some of it dire) and much trial and error (both comical and tragic), helping explain why wisdom, as opposed to intelligence, was mostly the preserve of the old. We admired the “self-made man”, because character was a creation — one constructed often at great cost. Many a “character-building” adventure, such as joining the Army, was a trial by fire.

And this:

These days, discussion of “character” is largely relegated to fiction workshops and film reviews. Instead, we relentlessly address “identity”, a hollowed-out concept now reduced to membership of the groups into which we were involuntarily born — thereby removing all choice about who we are.

... we now inform children that their selves emerge from the womb fully formed. Their sole mission is to tell us what those selves already are.

Deep down we all know that challenge cultivates character.

This week, I fired off a question to a few group chats, asking friends what had been instrumental in the formation of their own character.

Two themes emerged clearly from the responses: (1) the importance of challenge, and (2) the importance of encouragement.

The importance of challenge

My simple Q&A backed up the observations of Lionel Shriver. It is through our experiences, trials and errors that we become mature and wise.

The idea that challenge cultivates character has been observed throughout human history. The Bible, for example, is filled with examples of maturity as the fruit of suffering and struggle.

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

– Apostle Paul to the Romans, 5:3-4

When we only ever affirm a young person's feelings or sense of identity, we actually hinder rather than help them.

In refusing to challenge them, we close the door on growth. We keep them from becoming someone greater than they presently are.

Without difficulty, young people will not build character. And without encouragement young people will not see that challenges are worth enduring.

The importance of encouragement

I love the concept of encouragement. The word comes from two words and you don’t need to be a genius to figure them out: in and courage. To encourage means to fill with courage. We do this when we speak truth, and provide support, confidence and hope.

Courage is exactly what young people need today, as they face the myriad of problems around them:

• They need courage to say no to peer pressure

• They need courage to express their beliefs

• They need courage to meet new people

• They need courage to act with integrity

• They need courage to finish hard tasks

• They need courage to resolve conflict

Encouragement through the challenges of life, not merely affirmation of identity or feelings, is what will help our young people mature. We ought not to be merely interested in who they are, but more importantly, who they are becoming.