Why Gareth Southgate's lecture on young men and Netflix drama Adolescence are both must-watches

Young men today are lost boys being manipulated by toxic influencers

I am not sure what I expected from a Richard Dimbleby Lecture by a former football manager but it's fair to say Gareth Southgate was a revelation. At a time when civil society feels bereft of positive male role models, the former England manager offered incredible insight and advice.

In his hour-long speech, Southgate warned that ignoring the negative impact of social media was not an option. That young men are struggling – lost boys being tempted by callous, toxic manipulators with no interest in doing anything positive for them.

His words come at a time when we are perhaps only waking up to the negative consequences of an online world largely, until now at least, unregulated and whose violent imagery has been unfiltered. It also comes as the Netflix drama Adolescence, about a teenage boy caught up in a stabbing death, has laid out the zeitgeist of our time for us all to see.

Former England manager Gareth Southgate has warned that ignoring the negative impact of social media, particularly on young men, is not an option (Picture: Ina Fassbender) | AFP via Getty Images

A generation in crisis

Its message is a warning to us all. We have a generation in crisis. There’s an epidemic of knife crime which destroys so many young men’s lives and violence against women and girls feels out of control. Online abuse is everywhere.

I have stopped looking at various social platforms because I know I will only come away feeling degraded and attacked. I tell myself I’m a politician and must expect criticism, but young women and girls shouldn’t have to put up with the bile and insults that find their way onto the platforms I would bet they originally joined to keep up with their friends. To have a laugh.

That is a world away from the reality of current social media which is festooned with negative images of women and worse. There are deep fakes, revenge porn and non-consensual, intimate images.

At a recent Women and Equalities Committee, we heard evidence from social media giants that even they cannot keep up with the rate of developments of how these images are created and published. At the moment, most of them are taken down voluntarily but about 10 per cent of images remain on line.

Online Safety Bill already feels outdated

The committee’s subsequent report warned that the new regulatory scheme in the Online Safety Act, overseen by regulator Ofcom, is unlikely to have much impact as many of the most toxic sites are hosted overseas and, under the current proposed legal framework, internet service providers will not block access to offensive content unless specifically mandated to do so by Ofcom.

In parliament we had only just passed the Online Safety Bill. But already it feels out of date. All of this seems only to heighten the pertinence of what Southgate was saying. He made no apology for speaking about the problems facing young men, and he was right not to.

While he is more qualified to talk about young men having spent a career developing their characters and the culture in which they operate, he also recognised that we cannot deal with the violence against young women if we do not help young men.

That is also the message I have taken from Adolescence. I will not give away the plot but, if you can, I would recommend watching both that drama and Southgate’s lecture. The combination is enlightening.

Christine Jardine is Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West