They lost months of schooling to the Covid lockdowns, have been exposed to an explosion in online pornography and have had more screen time and access to social media than ever before.
Now the most comprehensive poll of British 16 and 17-year-olds reveals the widespread repercussions for their development, education and social lives. It shows a generation in the grip of a confidence crisis that is particularly acute among girls.
More than 33 per cent of girls surveyed said they suffered from anxiety. In answer to a separate question nearly 70 per cent of girls said anxiety had led them to skip school, according to the exclusive poll for The Sunday Times. As they prepare to return to education this week, the words they favoured to describe their world were “hard”, “difficult”, “challenging”, “stressful” and “scary”.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary said: “When the majority of kids have missed time in school because of anxiety, something very wrong has clearly been allowed to take hold — that this government is fixing.”
While boys have been the focus of concern regarding educational underachievement, the study of more than 1,100 16-and 17- year-olds paints a more worrying picture for girls, who tended to have lower life-satisfaction and were more likely to feel that they lacked purpose in life.
The pollster, More in Common, also organised an online focus group with young people across England, where they spoke of their fears for the future, the effects of the pandemic and the impact of social media. Together with the poll, it offers a rare insight into the lives of the next generation of voters and what makes them tick.
Luke Tryl, the executive director of More in Common, said: “While there has rightly been a focus on young men, this poll highlights serious challenges facing young women: higher reported levels of anxiety and mental health problems, worries about body image and lower life satisfaction. In a few important ways, it does seem like some kids are not, in fact, all right.”
Ministers confirmed plans last month to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in time for the next election, bringing Westminster in line with Holyrood and the Senedd. It will be the biggest change to the franchise since the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18 in 1969 and makes 16 and 17-year-olds targets for political parties to woo.
Scared to go to school
This year’s cohort of 16 and 17-year-olds either missed most of their last year of primary school and their first year of secondary school, or the first two years of secondary school.
Forty eight per cent said closing schools and moving learning online did more harm than good, compared to 38 per cent who believed it did more good. Thirty-two per cent believed that the government focused too much on older people during the pandemic.
In the focus group, Jake, 17, from Leeds, said the three national lockdowns caused “quite a lot of issues for me socially”. He added: “When we went back [to school], I felt very out of place … I struggled a lot with social interaction.”
Lyla, also from Leeds, 17, said her friends had struggled with similar problems. She told the focus group: “I’ve noticed that in a lot of my friends, that they do have trouble with certain social situations … you don’t really know what to do with yourself now.”
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Twenty-four per cent of 16 and 17-year-olds said they had anxiety, rising to 34 per cent among girls. Anxiety was the most common condition reported, which had been either professionally or self-diagnosed. This was followed by ADHD, 14 per cent, rising to 16 per cent among girls, depression, 13 per cent, rising to 18 per cent among girls, autism, 11 per cent, rising to 12 per cent among girls, and dyslexia, 10 per cent, rising to 11 per cent among girls.
Nearly 60 per cent of 16 and 17-year-olds said they had stayed home from school due to anxiety, with 17 per cent saying that they often avoided going to school. The problem was more pronounced among girls, with 69 per cent saying they had “sometimes” or “often” stayed home from school due to anxiety, compared with 48 per cent of boys.
Twenty-four per cent of girls often stayed home from school because of anxiety, compared with 11 per cent of boys. Speaking about her own experience, Siya from Birmingham, told the focus group: “I had quite bad anxiety and there was a lot of time I took off school.”
Phillipson, the education secretary, said “My mission is to build a resilient new generation with the grit and wherewithal to cope with life’s ups and downs. We’re giving access to in-school and college mental health support to almost a million more children this year, on track to reach all children by the end of the parliament.”
The biggest fear among the age group was about exams, school or college, with 48 per cent of those asked saying they worried “a lot” about it.
This was followed by concerns about finding a job, 47 per cent, future financial worries, 42 per cent, physical appearance, 37 per cent and mental health, 31 per cent.
They were less concerned about their ability to buy a home in the future, with 64 per cent of those polled saying they thought it was “very likely” or “quite likely” they would be able to manage it, compared with 27 per cent who thought it was “quite unlikely”, or “very unlikely”.
This was despite the fact that the proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds living with their parents has increased by nearly 33 per cent in two decades. Siya, 17, from Birmingham, told the focus group that while the dream of home ownership wasn’t something that kept her awake at night, “it is just something I think … ‘will I have to work ten times harder than my parents to have the same lifestyle?’”
Last week’s GCSE results saw the pass rate among girls fall, while boys’ rose slightly. According to the poll, boys were more likely to “always enjoy” school or college, 16 per cent, than girls, 10 per cent.
The poll showed that boys rated their life satisfaction more highly than girls. Asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale of nought to ten, girls were nearly twice as likely as boys to choose an answer between zero and three. On the other end, 58 per cent of boys rated their life satisfaction seven out of ten or higher, compared with only 37 per cent of girls.
Forty per cent of girls said they often felt that they had no purpose in life, compared with 29 per cent of boys.
Drugs, alcohol and pornography
Some in the focus group linked the mental health struggles of their peers to substance abuse. Amaan, 16, from Manchester, said some of his friends, if they were depressed, would “use alcohol or weed to help them get happy”. He said: “They’d be stuck in a cycle for months on end and that’s the only way they could get a grasp of happiness for a short while.”
The poll showed that 82 per cent of 16 to 17-year-olds had drunk alcohol with 41 per cent saying they drank one to two units a week.
Thirty-five per cent of those polled said they vaped, rising to 39 per cent among girls. This compared with 20 per cent who smoked cigarettes, 16 per cent who smoked cannabis, 8 per cent who use snus (nicotine pouches) and 5 per cent who have used other illegal substances, such as cocaine.
ALEKSANDR YU/GETTY IMAGES
Despite reports that younger generations are more censorious and clean-living than those who went before, the poll does not back this up. While 60 per cent had a “very negative” view of illegal drug users, just 17 per cent had this opinion of alcohol.
And while drugs and alcohol have been worries of parents for generations, this cohort faces potential harm from pornography which is more widely available than previously. Thirty-eight per cent said that they first saw explicit content before the age of 13 and 8 per cent said they were under ten.
Boys were more likely to have watch pornography, but girls were more likely to have been exposed to porn at a younger age. Thirty-six per cent of boys said that they had never watched pornography, compared with 61 per cent of girls. However, 46 per cent of girls said they first saw pornography before they were 13, compared with 34 per cent of boys.
With sextortion feared to be rife in school, the poll found that 14 per cent of 16 and 17-year-olds had sent an explicit photograph of themselves, including 16 per cent of boys and 12 per cent of girls.
Ten hours a day on phones
The poll will also do little to dispel concerns that children were spending too much time online in their bedrooms. It showed that 42 per cent spent more than six hours a day on their phone, and 9 per cent spent more than ten hours.
Almost 10 per cent said that they would confide in an AI chatbot when they had a personal problem. That was more than those who said they confided in a teacher or adult at school, 8 per cent, or a friend they met online, 8 per cent.
Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, confirmed last month that the government was considering setting social media screen time limits for children. There have been growing calls, including from senior police officers, to ban children under 16 from social media sites.
Asked at what age children should be able to create and use social media accounts without parental supervision, 32 per cent said the age limit should be set at 14 to 15-year-olds, followed by 31 per cent who said 16 to 17-year-olds. Only 4 per cent said there should be no limit.
Siya, 17, from Birmingham, told the focus group: “Initially people want social media because all their friends have it and they feel like they’re missing out.” She added: “Everyone who has had it for a long time doesn’t particularly like it.”
Tristan, 17, from Faversham, Kent, agreed, adding: “I don’t remember the last thing I saw on Instagram or TikTok that was actually worth my while, and I do spend quite a while on it, but if nobody else used it, I wouldn’t use it at all. It’s just a social aspect of it all.”
Following the new Online Safety Act, thousands of websites offering adult content, as well as popular social media apps including X, Reddit and TikTok, have introduced new age checks for UK users. The controls are designed to prevent under-18s from accessing sites that have pornography as well as material that relates to self-harm, eating disorders or suicide.
Nigel Farage has called for the law to be scrapped as a “dystopian” threat and an affront to free speech. Most young people in the poll said it would be easy to circumvent.
Boys will be boys
Boys and girls have different views on masculinity, feminism and gender equality. Twenty-nine per cent of boys believed Britain would be better if we enforced traditional gender roles between men and women while 31 per cent believed it would be worse. Among girls, the rates were 19 per cent and 47 per cent respectively.
The poll showed that 53 per cent of girls and 24 per cent of boys would describe themselves as feminists. Thirty-two per cent of boys said “real men” had to be fit and muscular, a view shared by just 11 per cent of girls.
However, the influencer and alleged rapist Andrew Tate was highly unpopular among 16 and 17-year-olds of both genders. The self-proclaimed “misogynist” and “sexist” has said that there is “no such thing as an independent female”. He faces 21 charges in the UK, including rape, actual bodily harm, and human trafficking. In Romania, the influencer, who has more than ten million followers on X, faces similar charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. He denies all charges.
Andrew Tate
ALEXANDRU DOBRE/AP
According to the poll, he has a net approval rating of -37, significantly lower than any politician and every party leader respondents were asked about. While boys were less scathing in their views, he was at -16 among them, compared with -58 among girls.
Bonnie Blue, the pornographic film actress who claimed to have had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours, was even more unpopular than Tate with a net approval rating of -42 per cent, rising to -53 among girls.
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Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner, said: “These findings paint a stark picture, but mirror much of what I’ve heard from more than a million children: that young people today are ambitious, socially aware and pragmatic, but they feel no one is listening to them.
Dame Rachel de Souza
AARON CHOWN/PA
“This generation has faced enormous challenges: the disruption of a global pandemic, a lawless internet where influencers distort their self-worth and their attitudes towards each another, spikes in the cost of living and huge competition for housing, soaring numbers of children being diagnosed with a special educational need and a crisis in mental health — much of which has contributed to a stark drop in school attendance, with 1 in 50 children now missing at least half of school.
“Yet I know that despite all this, they are not cynical. They believe in fairness, in community, in getting on and doing well. They deserve a solid commitment that they matter, and they are being heard. Not simply by lowering the voting age.”