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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Martha Gill

Adolescence reveals a terrifying truth: smartphones are poison for boys’ minds

Owen Cooper sitting at a table in a secure room as 13-year-old Jamie Miller in the Netflix drama Adolescence.
Owen Cooper as 13-year-old Jamie Miller in the Netflix drama Adolescence. Photograph: Netflix

Every so often, a television drama comes along that has the power to change things. Last year, it was ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office, in which the plight of subpostmasters was rendered with such success that it actually hastened in real-world legislation to compensate them.

And now we have Netflix’s Adolescence, which looks at the online radicalisation of young boys by men’s rights activists (MRAs) such as Andrew Tate. Last week, Keir Starmer told the Commons he had been watching the series with his family and that it portrayed an “emerging and growing problem” that needed to be tackled. Now MPs are examining ideas to address the issue with greater urgency.

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