World News

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.

In my opinion the huge difference between this generation and all previous ones is that content is no longer vetted by anyone. It used to be that to put something in front of kids it had to approved by some sane adult. If a TV station marketed to children something that most parents would not approve they would face protests or maybe even legal action. On social media any asshole can post literally anything and millions of kids will consume it without any supervision.

Have you ever had a creepy guy who hangs around the school desperately trying to impress little kids? Yeah he's the online version.

I don't think it is social media. It is much more simple: people can't spend time with each other. Employers keep reducing the wages, while maintaining or increasing the amount of work their employees have to do. This means that workers can't invest time into friends or family, which in turn deprives children of healthy role models.

Jackasses like Tate get to influence the children, because there is a void that has been left empty - Tate has enough wealth and time to fill in for society. Work culture is a ravenous beast, forever chasing workers. If you pause, you lose everything. So you might as well sacrifice the time you could spend with family, since you would lose them anyway if you shirk being a breadwinner.

Optimization for the sake of line going up, inevitably destroys everything that surrounds the pillar that society is forced to worship.

Let's not pretend like these children aren't having this behavior reinforced by their parents.

When I was a kid in the 80s & 90s that's when the parents get brought in.

He should meet a Luigi.

"In a secondary English class last year, a group of boys opted, despite discouragement, to write a persuasive essay on why Andrew Tate is the GOAT (greatest of all time) which included praise of his view that women are a man's property... all of the parents were contacted and were appalled."

When I worked in a middle school a couple years back, I heard the Tate shit there. Had a student who would name their Kahoot something like “[female students name] has a nice ass” and administration would refuse to allow me to impose consequences.

If you are around teen boys, please talk to them about Tate. He’s not someone who should be walking free, and he’s not someone children should be listening to.

Gotta remember... This is sky news. Probably fake. Especially since the "survey" doesn't even match the headline.

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.

Wow it seems like everyone here is completely credulous and happy to have their bias confirmed.

When I was 10, or 13 there were literally no issues like this at all. Well, I didn't even think about girls that much at that age, let alone in overly sexual way, lol.

What the actual fuck is happening with society recently? Is everybody going insane because of social media?

Well the solution to that one 10 year old is pretty clear. Actions have consequences, if he wants to be a little shit he can repeat the grade next year after hard failing this one.

Andrew Tate should just put on the Taliban turban and be done with this charade. His entire schtick is Sharia for Americans.

Yall didn’t see this coming with the red pill derived slang that kids have been using? They’re obsessed with their value. It’s terrifying and capitalism loves it.

Stories like this are what I think of every time the topic of regulating social media comes up.

We know it's programmed to create rage machines. We do, and then people act surprised when social media works as designed.

I truly thought that this Tate guy was a complete character like Borat. I'm floored realizing this is a real "person"? How does anyone care about helping this guy. Oh wait.

Parents need to raise their children and stop letting social media do it.

This is totally a diffusion of social media issue. Twenty years ago, the media that kids had available for consumption was age rated. We had agreed as a society that certain things should not be visible to children until they grow up. It was possible to do because it was centralized (TV, movies, radio, print) and it was accountable to regulatory bodies and the rest of society. If a TV channel showed something as shitty as Tate style propaganda, there was institutional pushback, there were letters to the editor, there was someone specific to be targeted for accountability.

With social media being dominated by US style "freedom of speech" algorithms and US style acceptance of the impossibility (or even undesirability) of regulation and with completely unaccountable megacorps running them while giving very minimal if non-existent attention to who is watching what, we have a complete lack of age rating. We have given up on the idea of protecting childhood it seems.

Coupled with every fucking other issue being brought up in this thread, from COVID, to economic issues, to cultural misogyny, there is a perfect storm...

can you blame boys for aspiring to this

Fail em. It'll be hilarious to the next group of kids who see someone his age in their class. And then the next

Fine, just fail them. This is a problem for the parents to address. And if the parents refuse, then they can enjoy having a child who lives off of benefits and aspires to be an "influencer". Lol.

They can all fail and become bitter incels together

In 10 years, it seems we not only gave up our own nations’ dreams of equality and union, but lustfully decided to lick the boots of those telling us our dreams aren’t worth having. It doesn’t help that the self-proclaimed “leader of the free world” is a known rapist who cuts deals with the Taliban at the expense of women’s liberties.