Dark side of the digital age

What can we learn from the Netflix series Adolescence?

Originally published in the Moultrie News.

Did you see the Netflix series Adolescence? How accurate was its portrayal of today’s teen lifestyle?

(Caution: Spoilers)

Adolescence is a realistic four-part British series. It follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller and his family after he is arrested for the murder of his classmate, Katie. It paints a distressingly accurate picture of the dark side of contemporary adolescence, particularly in middle school.

We learn in episode 1 that a detective’s child doesn’t like to go to school. Episode 2 reveals why: It is a bleak, chaotic environment. This is an accurate depiction of our most challenging middle schools. We see the clueless administrators, uninvested teachers, and entitled, unparented children. An “inmates running the asylum” sense pervades. Bullying and disrespect are rampant. When their classmate's murder is revealed, students respond with laughter or shrugs.

Throughout the series, a villain lurks in the background: social media. The damage it has inflicted on adolescents is on full display: cyberbullying, depression, hypersexuality, disconnectedness, and the mob mentality. The detectives, trained to investigate the most sophisticated crimes, are utterly confounded by it. The motivation for Katie’s murder hides in plain sight, written in a code of emojis and slang. It takes the detective’s son — embarrassed by his father’s ignorance — to finally clue him in: Katie was taunting Jamie, using signs and syntax no adult would understand. This is a sobering illustration of the seismic generation gap created by online culture. Adults and children live in completely different digital worlds with different languages and values.

We are shocked when Jamie recounts “typical” 13-year-old sexual behavior. We shouldn’t be. Creating and sharing personalized pornography is the 21st century’s rite of passage, opening doors to degrading sex acts at increasingly younger ages. Pornography is killing love and innocence. Adult viewers will smile wistfully as Jamie’s parents describe how their relationship began at a high school dance. It’s a sweet origin story, and as I listened to it, I wondered how many of today’s children will ever be able to tell such stories again.

It’s true that Jamie’s outcome is unusual. Victims of today’s digital decay do not often become killers; they become the killed, their spirits slowly strangled by a stultifying, swipe-addicted languor. They turn into the laughers and shruggers in episode 2. This is not worse than becoming a killer, but it surely is little better.

Episode 4 focuses on Jamie’s parents. They swing from believing the tragedy was inevitable to blaming themselves for everything. The former is a rationalization. Though parents aren’t at fault for every bad action a child commits, it isn’t true that kids are “destined’ to be what they become. They’re only destined to end up where they’re headed, and parents have tremendous influence over their paths.

The series’ most extraordinary scene comes as Jamie’s parents reckon with their roles in his actions. His mother remembers that he would isolate himself in his room, staying up late on the computer. She would try to intervene, but he would not respond. His father expresses a sense of helplessness, suggesting that all kids act similarly these days: “But he was in his room, weren't he? We thought he was safe, didn't we? … You know, what harm can he do in there?”

A lot more than most parents imagine. No child is safe in their room if the internet is present. Their bodies might be secure, but their hearts and minds are sneaking out under the direct influence of 5 billion strangers, zero percent of whom have the child’s best interest in mind.

The tragedy of the state of today’s adolescence is summarized in a chilling line by Jamie’s father: “I thought we were doing the right thing.” Parents who allow children to lose themselves in a foreign digital world sincerely believe they are doing the right thing. Adolescence’s achievement is to show them that they are not.

That is the glimmer of hope the show offers: showing the dire condition of modern adolescence, parents may lift their blinders and use their considerable influence to turn things around.

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Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.