Spending hours every day on mobile phones is a contributing factor
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The beginning of the school year is an anxious moment for teenagers. New subjects and teachers, the shifting sands of friendship over the summer, the loss of cherished freedom. But our new survey of 16 and 17-year-olds, the most comprehensive of its type, suggests that the present crop of teens is struggling with anxiety of a deeper and more troubling sort.
The polling, done by More in Common, found that anxiety was particularly common among girls — 34 per cent reported suffering from it. Nearly three in five pupils surveyed said they had missed school because of anxiety, and the figure was 69 per cent for girls.
It is not an exaggeration to call this an epidemic. But what is behind it? One obvious culprit is the Covid lockdowns. Much of this generation missed large chunks of the first two years of secondary school. Another contributing factor is phones. Of the 16 and 17-year-olds in the survey, 43 per cent said they spent more than six hours a day on their phone. That is more than a third of their waking moments spent scrolling, watching videos and interacting with one other in the anarchic world of social media. It is an addiction.
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The wider context of economic uncertainty and global instability is no doubt feeding into teen anxiety. But it is also the case that we live in a society that diagnoses many ordinary human emotions as mental health conditions. It is normal for hormonal teenagers to feel daily stress and anxieties. We all do. Sometimes these emotions are overwhelming and assistance is required, but more often they are something we must accept as part of life and learn to manage.
The emotional crisis among teenagers seems to be affecting behaviour too. Worrying new government statistics show that every child is missing the equivalent of 45 days of education a year to the disruption caused by the bad behaviour of some pupils. It is essential that ministers and teaching unions address these problems with the gravity they deserve.
The picture that has emerged of Britain’s teenagers should be an alarm call but it is not cause for panic. As the children’s commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, points out, most young people are not cynical or cruel. “They believe in fairness, in community, in getting on and doing well,” she said. It is the responsibility of adults to pay heed to these troubling statistics and help them do just that.