Adolescence and the toxic online world: what's the solution?

"Do you know where your children are?" Once, that was among the most chilling things you could ask a parent, said Sarah Ditum on UnHerd. Now, "parents know exactly where their children are: at home, probably in their bedrooms".

The after-school time that previous generations spent being anti-social in the park, at a youth club, or lost in books, is now spent on screens. Teenagers typically spend almost five hours a day on social media. So parents know where their children are; but they are anxious, because they have very little idea of what they are doing – whose cruel or unsavoury opinions they may be reading, what misinformation they may be absorbing, and what horrific images they may be seeing.

That abiding fear – that our children are living in worlds we struggle even to understand – may explain the extraordinary public response to the Netflix drama Adolescence, which has been seen all over the world, and even led to questions in Parliament.

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'The 80/20 rule'

Across four episodes, each filmed in a single take, the drama unpicks how a bright English boy of 13 from a loving family came to stab a teenage girl to death. The motivation for the crime is initially unclear, but it transpires that the boy, Jamie, has become embroiled in the "manosphere". This online subculture (described by one character as "Andrew Tate shite") is not shown; instead, it is represented by the efforts of baffled adults to unravel the meanings of the teenagers' online communications.

The police eventually realise that Katie, the dead girl, had used emojis to brand Jamie as an "incel" (an involuntary celibate) on social media, and had also rejected his offer of a date, said Chloe Combi in The Independent. In the manosphere, this is unacceptable to those who have taken the "red pill". This term originated in the film The Matrix (characters swallow a red pill to see the true world), but has been "repurposed by male supremacist movements". Anti-feminist influencers encourage "red-pilling" – abandoning notions of equality or kindness, because the "truth" is that women are shallow, mercenary and unworthy.

This is typified by the 80/20 rule, to which Jamie refers, said Maddy Mussen in The London Standard: the idea that 80% of women are attracted to the top 20% of men (in terms of looks and money). The implication is that when men are not romantically successful, it is the fault of women, for being too picky. But online, this is all discussed in a code that will pass most parents by: a kidney bean emoji represents an incel; a coffee cup can denote contempt for women; heart emojis have different meanings according to their colour. Then there is the slang – everything from "cucks" (subservient men) and "sigmas" (high-status lone wolves) to "looksmaxxing"– improving your looks to enhance your "sexual market value".

'The stimulus to socialise'

Most boys enter this world via innocuous searches about fitness or dating, said Saul Parker in The Independent. These lead them to "charismatic" male influencers whose representations of masculinity are rooted in the idea of "emotional control" and "physical strength", and in a supposedly better era when men were in charge. (This is Andrew Tate on how to deal with a woman who accuses him of cheating: "It's bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up b****.")

But the real question is not how boys get to the manosphere, but why they find it consoling. And the answer is fairly clear. In today's society, young men are failing: outperformed by girls at school, socially isolated, prey to unrealistic body image standards. They also feel ostracised in society – characterised as the "problematic" gender, and portrayed as potential aggressors before they've had a chance even to become friends with girls.

What is the solution, asked Martha Gill in The Observer. In a Dimbleby Lecture last week, the former England manager Gareth Southgate spoke of the need for better role models for boys, many of whom are growing up without a father at home. We need more clubs, he said, where boys can come under the wing of sports coaches, and we need more men to become teachers. But this seems a slow and inadequate fix. Youth clubs would be welcome, of course – but would they really be able to lure the young away from the rewards of the online world? Tech geniuses spend vast sums working out how to keep users hooked on their platforms, where "the stimulus to socialise" – inclusion, approval, recognition – is boosted and made addictive.

The online world also creates the conditions for radicalisation by making every slight, every dent to the young ego, devastating – incapable of being brushed off and forgotten as it would be in real life. Toxic influencers come to the rescue, promising boys routes to approval and status. Since parents have proved incapable of keeping their children out of this loop, some countries are considering smart-phone bans for children. "It may be time for us to do the same."