Summary
Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled… and nearly three in five (59%) said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”. Another said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine’”.
“There is an urgent need for concerted action… to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists.”
Every teacher I hear from (US) these days basically says the newest generation coming up is completely screwed. Unreal levels of behavioral issues that are not being addressed at home. Complete lack of engagement with the lesson plan, unfinished assignments all over. They need to curve grades left and right just to get the majority of the class to pass. The parents are more emboldened than ever to make the teachers’ lives hell over things they know nothing about and refuse to take responsibility for.
It’s easy to brush it off as the standard generational nose-thumbing…but this seems different. Something is really breaking down and I think social media is at the center of it.
It’s a shame teachers are pressured to “curve grade” rather than just flunk these people and hold them back a grade.
Schools now lose funding when kids don’t pass, so admins press teachers to move them along.
All Kids Left Behind
Murica’
Many if not all school districts in the States have their funding tied to their performance, so there is a negative incentive to make grades look good. My elementary school tried to place me in their Special Ed program because my grades would have brought the average up there.
Plus, holding back 60, 70, 80% of an entire class just isn’t logistically feasible in most cases.
I feel like you could apply this to almost every societal crisis we’re facing. It’s like social media took every little crack in the foundation and turned it into a chasm.
Parents in Facebook echo chambers trying to discover who to blame for their child’s shitty behaviour then getting into arguments when they are told to perhaps get off their phone and speak to their child.
Children in Facebook echo chambers where they make their neurodivergence their entire personality while simultaneously excusing any and all behaviour due to it.
If both groups spoke to each other a lot could be changed.
It is different, because never in human history has it been easier to influence people. We are literally addicted, as in the brain is literally addicted, to our little disinformation device, the output of which is largely controlled by malicious powerful entities. Now add impressionable young brains to the mix.
It is a pretty terrible scenario with no obvious solution.
Those damn machines, impacting the youth!
Those damn newspapers, impacting the youth!
Those damn radios, impacting the youth!
Those damn TVs, impacting the youth!
Those damn internet connected computers, impacting the youth!
Those damn smartphones, impacting the youth!
Those damn AI models, impacting the youth!
Our youth now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders, and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants not servants of their household. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
Thousands of years of this stuff.
I’m probably just another old idiot who can’t see things for what they really are, but social media does scare the hell out of me. It’s hard to imagine it being a good thing when personalities are shaped by algorithms that exist entirely to drive engagement so a company makes a buck.
It isn’t just rich chocolaty ovaltine. The kid isn’t being brainwashed to drink a sugary drink from time to time. The kid is a constant revenue stream.
We really have reached a whole new level of impression.
Probably going to get slated for this but surely at some point we need to accept our being all nice and friendly all the time just doesn’t work.
Like if kids are this bad send them off to military school for a month till they shape up. Happens again 6 months, then 12. Government mandated, parents don’t like it, they can look after their kids better.
People are absolute shits and don’t give a fuck about others or their future. No amount of “please pay attention or you won’t understand algebra and won’t get a good job” will do anything, you will just get “Why do i need to learn algebra! I’ll never use that. John just told me to shut up, what am I meant to do? Just let him disrespect me like that. You should be talking to John!”
Fuck them. Make them do press ups in the rain see if they learn to shut up then.
How many Gomer Pyles will that produce?
Maybe less than all the murderers we have now. Being straightened out by the military is a well known phenomenon. We can’t keep doing the same things when trends are showing they aren’t working, then expect them to work better. Something needs to be changed.
I’ll broaden it to not just social media, but the totality of endless scrolling social media, plus endless access to narcissist “influencers”, plus addicting video games (inspired by gambling patterns), plus must watch addicting TV shows and movies on demand. A lot of this is endless dopamine machine. Add in both parents working and only children with no siblings is less socialization.
Social media is definitely a big thing, even if it’s not the only thing.
I believe it has two parts. The technology can personalize content and optimize for engagement, so it’s more addicting than traditional media could ever be.
And the jackasses making content have no accountability or editorial standards whatsoever. They churn out whatever clicks and they’re willing to lie, incite, and gaslight their way through it.
Combine the low content standards with the high addiction factor and you have a ticking time bomb. Or maybe it already went off and we’re just looking around at the crater left behind.
lol, and here’s me thinking I’ll get to finally loosen these bootstraps one day. Wouldn’t be Millennial difficulty if something nice happened for once, so why should I expect reprieve in retirement age? Probably just be anxious af anyway because not being abused by another generation seems too good to be true.
Nooo, kids were like that form the ancient times /s.