What our reaction to Adolescence tells us about our fear of boys, sex and the internet
- Written by The Conversation
News feeds have been flooded with reactions to Adolescence, Netflix’s newest viral hit. Released in March, the limited series racked up over 66 million views in just two weeks, making it the platform’s most-watched limited series to date.
The show follows the arrest of a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a young girl. It hints at potential radicalisation through the “manosphere” – pointing to emojis, incels and influencers like Andrew Tate.
From the BBC, to Rolling Stone, Harper’s Bazaar, and a range of Reddit threads, Adolescence has quickly become one of the most talked-about UK series in recent memory. While some of the buzz reflects its gripping cinematography and performances, much of it centres on the show’s depiction of online dangers and the risks for young boys exposed to this content.
The show has reignited debate about boys and their relationship to digital spaces, particularly social media. The UK prime minister even backed a proposal to screen the series in schools for free, alongside calls for school smartphone bans – measures already in place in parts of Australia.
This public reaction to Adolescence reveals a broader social anxiety about boys, sex and the digital world. But while the public reaction focuses on fear and internet restrictions, evidence shows that young people – boys included – are already engaging with the digital world in complex, thoughtful ways.
A history of moral panic
The same anxiety underpins Australia’s world-first ban on social media for under-16s – framed as a way to protect young people from sexual content, harmful gender roles, and the influence of platforms like Instagram and TikTok. The federal education minister has described social media as a “cesspit” from which children must be protected.
Yet this policy was introduced in direct response to a rise in women being killed by their intimate partners. It’s a subtle but powerful misdirection – one that offers a political fix while avoiding the more difficult work of addressing men’s violence.
Instead, this policy response draws on a history of moral panic about young people and the internet. Young people are a “problem” we can “fix”, while ignoring deeper social and cultural issues.
This framing of boys and the internet ignores their capacity, skills and how they engage in the digital world. It also ignores the many ways in which they learn about relationships.
Most importantly, it risks further marginalising boys from the conversations and education they urgently need.
Young people engage with online spaces thoughtfully
Our research with young people and experts shows that teens engage with online spaces far more thoughtfully than they’re often given credit. They know how to assess credibility, search for diverse sources and navigate content in ways that reflect their needs.
This process – of searching, comparing, evaluating – isn’t passive consumption. It’s an important part of how young people develop and find space to think about their identities, sex and relationships.
Their engagement is often nuanced: they weigh content against other information, test it against their own experience, and assess how trustworthy or relatable a source might be.
In a context where young people routinely report receiving inadequate education on sex and relationships – via parents or school-based programs – online spaces play an important role in helping them to fill these gaps.
These platforms often provide the only accessible way for young people to explore aspects of their identity, sexuality and relationships.
Boys are left out
Some of our other research shows that cisgender, heterosexual boys are often left out of conversations about sex, relationships and consent. Such conversations could give them space to ask questions, express uncertainty and give adults a chance to hear what the boys are thinking.
Instead of engaging boys with empathy or curiosity, we tend to talk at them, as if they alone are the problem, rather than talking with them.
When pornography is demonised, we also shut down the possibility of honest discussion. This leaves boys, who are often too afraid to ask questions, to interpret what they’re seeing without support. That silence creates a vacuum, one increasingly filled by figures like Tate. The “self-proclaimed misogynist”, with more than 10 million followers on Twitter, is known for promoting harmful views about women, violence and sexual assault.
Banning access to social media won’t fix this; it only deepens the lack of meaningful engagement with what young people might be seeing online.
Educators are also nervous about broaching these topics. This is hard in an environment where talking to kids about sex remains taboo and who is responsible for having these conversations is unclear. Should it fall to schools? Parents? Police?
How we can support young people
What’s needed are policies and education that support youth educators to address this effectively. This also means meeting boys where they are and providing all young people with the digital and relational skills to navigate these issues.
Young people don’t need Adolescence to understand the internet – they already do. What they need is support, space to ask questions and skills to navigate the ideas they’re exposed to, both online and in the world around them. That requires brave policies that prioritise education and equip them with critical digital literacy.
And if we’re serious about supporting young people, we need to stop pretending the problem starts with them.
