The problem with Adolescence

Adolescence is, unquestionably, the TV show of the moment. Created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, the four-part Netflix series centres around Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old boy who stands accused of murdering his classmate Katie. It begins with the police battering down the door of the Miller family home and arresting Jamie on suspicion of murder, much to the bafflement of his father Eddie (Stephen Graham), mother Amanda (Christine Tremarco), and sister Lisa. Each episode is masterfully shot in a single take, lending the show an intensely true-to-life edge.

It’s confirmed almost immediately that, yes, Jamie did do it. He did attack Katie with a kitchen knife. He did stab her seven times, “all over”, with wounds in her chest, neck, thigh, and arm. He did kill her. It’s not a spoiler to say so; speaking to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show last week, show co-creator Graham expressed that the team behind the show were conscious that they did not want to create a salacious whodunnit. “We wanted it to be more of a why,” he said.

So: why does Jamie do it? Adolescence – correctly, in my view – suggests that he was incited to violence largely as a result of the plague of misogynistic content on social media. In the final episode, Eddie and Amanda pore over Jamie’s radicalisation. “He’d come home, slam the door, straight up the stairs on the computer,” Amanda reflects. “I’d see the light on at one o’clock in the morning.” Eddie assures her that there’s nothing more they could have done. “Look at that fella that popped up on my phone, going on about how to treat women, how men should be men, and all that shit. I was only looking for something for the gym, weren’t I?”, he says, the “fella” in question heavily implied to be Andrew Tate.

It’s true that those of us on social media – that’s 98 per cent of us Gen Zers – are entirely at the mercy of algorithms. Major platforms like TikTok remain maddeningly opaque about exactly how their algorithms work, but it’s not difficult to spot patterns in what they choose to recommend. Speaking to the BBC in 2024, Andrew Kaung, a former analyst at TikTok, algorithms are designed to fuel engagement by showing you content which you’re inclined to spend longer watching. Often, this sort of thumb-stopping content is extremist in nature; independent research and reporting has consistently found that social media algorithms amplify misogynistic and inflammatory content.

But while it is impossible for parents to ensure their children are forever shielded from the likes of Andrew Tate, there’s no reason why this problem can’t be tackled at the root. If parents and teachers are powerless to adequately monitor the kind of content children are consuming online, why can’t social media companies do something? Why can’t misogynistic content be removed from platforms before it has a chance to poison impressionable young minds? It’s a question worth asking, but one Adolescence fails to pose. Instead the show meekly throws its hands up in defeat. “You can’t keep an eye on them all the time, love. We just can’t,” Eddie says.

It’s true – we can’t. But Elon Musk didn’t have to fire X’s content moderation chief and swathes of its moderation team when he took over the site in 2022. TikTok doesn’t have to lay off hundreds of content moderators and replace them with AI like it is planning to do. Social media companies shouldn’t be able to describe themselves as “digital town squares” and call it a day – they should be held responsible for the kind of content they publish. We don’t have to accept social media feeds overrun with misogynistic, hateful content forever.

Part of the beauty of Adolescence lies in its grittiness. It feels real on every level – from the stunningly naturalistic script to its lack of easy answers to the problem of misogyny. Perhaps an impassioned monologue from Eddie on the importance of employing human content moderators or a lengthy screed from Amanda on why the Online Safety Act isn’t fit for purpose would have been jarring – too didactic and too preachy for such a show. But a sharper skewering of social media titans wouldn’t have gone amiss.

While on The Tonight Show, Graham also spoke to Fallon about who is responsible for ensuring that boys don’t grow up into men who hate women. “What if we’re all accountable?,” he asked. “The education system, parenting, the community, the government. I’m not blaming anyone. I just thought maybe we’re all accountable and we should have a conversation about it.” I’d agree with Graham that it takes a village to raise a child, and that the communities around children have a role to play in determining the kind of adults they grow up into. But I’d add “social media companies” to his list – and I would apportion them a sizable wedge of blame.