David Lammy says ‘his generation is failing young men miserably’
While conversations around young men often focus on masculinity, mental health, the online world and radicalisation, new research has found that young men are more worried about something else.
LADbible’s Happening Now survey suggests that they’re more concerned about money with 54 percent saying it’s their biggest ‘day-to-day worry’.
There is absolutely no denying those issues matter, but a survey of 1500 men between the ages of 18 and 34 suggests that they primarily see their lives through an economic lens rather than a cultural one.
And at the LADbible Happening Now event in London this evening (9 June), these findings and more were discussed as questions were raised around young men’s struggles, social media and the importance of ‘real world spaces’.
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Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy joined panellists, such as YouTube OG Jim Chapman, as he says his generation 'created a world that is failing’ to protect young people.
A whopping 89 percent of the young men surveyed by LADbible Happening Now believe opportunities are difficult to access with 82 percent also believing young people are being left behind financially.
And 86 percent believe it is harder than ever to get ahead. So, while aspiration remains strong, there is this great economic pressure spilling into young men’s lives.
Fifty-nine percent say money and career is their biggest pressure and those concerns around loneliness, mental health and radicalisation can often be described as consequences of economic insecurity.
Speaking at tonight’s LADbible event, Lammy says we are ‘sitting here at a point that feels much more problematic’ than he may have anticipated a decade or so again.
So, as conversations around these issues take place, Lammy says: “It has got to be about serious deep solutions staying over a long period.”
Joining him on the panel, mental health ambassador Ben West suggests that outside of these conversations around social media contributing to issues, young men ‘need purpose’.
Without that, he doesn’t believe people can have ‘a positive mental health’.
“It’s no wonder we’ve got so many young men who are struggling to find a place in the world because they've been brought up with a very, very, very narrow view of what a productive member of society looks like,” West explains. He believes schools and society need to do more to show young people ‘what about them is amazing’ and give them ‘opportunity to explore other avenues of what it means to be a man’.
And Chapman echoes: “You can understand why some might get angry or feel frustrated if they’re having these struggles were talking about and then they’re villainised.”
Speaking anecdotally, the YouTuber says without ‘purpose and direction’, young people have no ‘grounding’.
“You’ve got nothing to sort of anchor from in which to go forward,” he says, highlighting the impact of this lack of purpose on mental health.
Open ended responses in the Happening Now survey saw younger men repeatedly mention uncertainty, lack of direction and confusion about the future with 19 percent saying a sense of purpose feels out of reach.
And a huge concern that came up in LADbible’s Happening Now survey are the concerns around community and belonging.
With 74 percent of young men believing local communities are being neglected, tonight’s discussion saw an emphasis on the important of ‘real-world spaces’.
In terms of socialising and seeking out connection, West says young men will ‘very often choose engagement with real people in real life’ if the opportunity does arise. But so much more socialisation now seems to happen on social media because it’s more accessible.
However the campaigners says: “Social media is rightly getting deconstructed in terms of the harms it is causing but we can’t fall into the trap of blaming social media for all of the problems.”
But, it cannot be ignored that there is this serving of misogyny online that is indisputably harmful.
Panellist Sarah Sternberg, the Director of Movember's Reimagining Masculinities Initiative at Movember, points out that young men aren’t necessarily seeking it.
She says young men are heading online for the same questions they’ve ‘always asked’ around ‘how do I ask a girl out?’ or ‘how do I get ripped?’.
“They are then, when they are there, being served with some content that actually might be quite useful to them,” Sternberg explains. “So ideas about how to ask about that, but also ideas that might be quite motivating.”
However, these things can get ‘wrapped in misogyny’.
“Young men are not going online because they’re misogynists or because they’re looking for misogynistic content,” she says. “But what is happening when they are online is they are getting really motivating and galvanising content that’s wrapped in a kind of misogynistic frame. And I think that's the bit that's really worrying.”
And all of this leads to Lammy saying his generation has ‘failed’ in protecting young people.
“The starting point in any sound, sane, civilised, caring, loving and kind society is: you should do everything to protect and keep your young people in a safe, nurturing environment,” the deputy prime minister claims.
“I watched Louis Theroux’s documentary, and I’ve got two young sons, I’m afraid the world my generation has created is failing on that test.
“It’s just failing miserably, the algorithms of what we are feeding not just our young men, but our young women as well, is horrifying.
“How have we allowed that to happen?
“And then I’m going to wear my political hat: how have we allowed that to happen effectively to make men wealthy and give them lots of money. It’s entirely unacceptable and something that I hope future generations look back on and say, how the hell did they let that happen?”
Lammy says what has happened is ‘unbelievable’ as he adds: “We’ve failed generations of young people.”
But while these issues are very real, there are things we can look to with optimism.
Chapman urges a protection on real-world spaces, there are calls for better regulation of social media and West stresses the importance of opportunities in school that make young men feel purposeful.
And Lammy adds that with a youngest kid of 12 and an eldest of 20, he can see a difference already.
“I sort of feel with a 12 year old that it's different,” he explains. “In terms of the other parents who are concerned about the online space, in terms of what schools are advising you to do, the environment is changing.”
Plus, despite these pressures, young men remain surprisingly optimistic.
They still believe hard work matters (84 percent) and still believe opportunities exist (30 percent). This is not a generation that has given up. Rather, it is a generation that feels opportunity exists but is becoming increasingly difficult to access.
Happening Now is a live audience-led conversation series from LADbible Group, designed to bring the realities of young people’s lives directly into the room with influential voices from politics, culture, sport and entertainment.
Combining live debate, audience interaction and culturally relevant voices, Happening Now is designed to create honest conversation, challenge perspectives and encourage meaningful accountability from those in positions of influence and power.
Topics: Politics, Originals, UK News, Social Media
Jess Battison