Adolescence and attachment - why a Netflix powerhouse prompted critical conversations

Adolescence is a powerful new Netflix drama which has rapidly captured attention on both sides of the Atlantic. It tells the story of a 13-year old English schoolboy who stabs a schoolgirl to death after she posts hurtful comments on his Instagram account. School gates, the UK parliament's House of Commons, mainstream US talkshows: it's fair to say that discussion has been sparked.

With each of its four episodes filmed in a single take, this is a breathless and heartbreaking watch. At the centre of its issues, as it appears to me, is the desperate grasping for attachment through technology. Also prominent is the idea of teenage boys as 'incels'. That is, involuntarily celibate men. Such ideas persuade them to blame women for their lack of relationships and opportunities. And for the painful loneliness, frustration and confusion that is often a part of being a young man. Or indeed, a young person. These feelings are difficult and have been filtered and packaged by toxic masculine outlets in a way that is compelling and can appear to make sense, which the show's writer Jack Thorne acknowledges. There is another idea mentioned often in the show around the 80/20 ratio. That is, 80% of girls are attracted to 20% of boys. Through these theories there can be a sense of epiphany and release. It allows blame to be directly attributed, and produces certain attitudes and behaviours.

It all reminds me of how the word 'virgin' could often be used as an insult during my own school days. 'Such a virgin'. Also 'frigid', and 'gay', which still exists as an insult.  I saw 'your gay' scrawled on a lamppost in my neighbourhood last week. Slurs and judgements about sexuality can be the most effective weapons of teenagers. Maybe it was always this way, and always will be. It's when people are just beginning to know themselves, when there are fixed ideas about what is normal and desirable, and right or wrong, or weird or strange. When young people are grasping for identity through attachment and understanding. When they are most fragile and impressionable to messages spread online.

A number of my young male therapy clients in their 20s have talked about being drawn into places like the Andrew Tate manosphere, which promotes such ideology. They can find them compelling, at least for a time. The social media metrics can lend an authority and power that makes it more persuasive. It offers fraternal attachment, brotherhood, hope, and explanation, the idea that other people feel such emotions, and there is a reason they feel so rejected and frustrated. There is support and relief in the toxic expression. In much the same way there might be support and relief and identification in less toxic expression: in a song about depression and loneliness, or break-up loss and grief.

Conversations prompted by Adolescence have sprawled in many directions. Stephen Graham, one the show's creators and lead actors, has appeared on many chatshows speaking about how it takes a village to raise a child, and the idea of shared responsibility for such awful events: parents, schools, communities, government. Many users of X have somewhat inevitably leapt to make the issue about race. There are significant factors about the negative impacts of excessive technology and smartphone use. But it seems to me like much is about attachment and vulnerability, the acceptance of emotion and how it's processed. At the end of the third episode, comprised entirely of the accused boy's interview with a female psychologist, he is wrestled out of the interview room, repeatedly screaming at her: "do you like me?!"

Similar issues were discussed by former England football manager Sir Gareth Southgate, in his recent BBC Richard Dimbleby lecture. Southgate led on the need for positive role models, with one of the most striking lines being how more young boys in the UK today have a smartphone, than live with their dad.

So how should kids manage vulnerability, isolation and loneliness, in an age of fully unfiltered information, available 24/7? And an age when kids are experiencing more parental separation and peer interaction than ever. It seems that the instinct is not to process it at all, but to numb themselves and prevent any sense of vulnerability. The idea of it is too much. Caring about anything is dangerous because it comes with risk. There is an idea promoted by Gabor Maté that all emotions are essential for human survival, because they help us to navigate and interpret the world. When we shut them off, avoid them, or attempt to become invulnerable, we are shutting off our access to growth and development, we are restricting ourselves. If kids are seeking attachment and identity through peers and online influencers rather than parents or people in their real world, they gravitate towards invulnerability, insensitivity, impersonality, aggression and violence. Limits are placed on growth and potential.

However, by developing awareness and reconfiguring unconditional real-world attachment, there is hope. Whether that is brokered by schools banning smartphones as in Australia, more technology-aware parenting through movements like Smartphone Free Childhood, or increased community activity, remains to be seen. Huge credit should go to Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne for their production, and for generating such noise around a critical subject.