British crime drama Adolescence has taken the world of the internet by storm and has sparked a global debate on the way parents nurture their kids as well as the kind of adverse effect social media could have on young, immature minds. The four-part Netflix series deals with a host of issues.
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00:00Hello and a warm welcome. You're watching The News Track. I'm Rahul Kamala.
00:05New Netflix series Adolescence has sparked a global debate about social media, about the incel culture, about raising children in the digital age.
00:16And has got people from the British Parliament to citizens to parents, schools, all thinking very hard about the impact social media and bullying has on the minds of young children.
00:31On the show I've assembled a super insightful panel of global experts, psychiatrists, communication experts, gender experts, academics, parents to talk about the series, to talk about the debates ensuing after people have watched the series and most importantly what you and I as parents need to do to ensure we can keep our children safe.
01:01The Raw Reality of Teenage Life.
01:16What's going on?
01:17I'm going to start off with asking you.
01:20Do you know a girl called Katie Leonard?
01:23Yeah.
01:24Menos fear.
01:25He hasn't been found guilty. He's been accused.
01:31Incel culture.
01:33Hey!
01:35Dangers of social media.
01:37Bunged by a girl, you saucer.
01:38Hey!
01:40Big warning for parents.
01:4380% of women are attracted to 20% of men.
01:47You must trick them because you'll never get them in a normal way.
01:50Is your child safe?
01:53What have you done?
01:55Adolescence alarm.
01:57That is our big focus on The News Track.
01:59The British series, Adolescence, is not just gandering rave reviews.
02:05It's also raised an alarm and put the spotlight on teen boys, social media and the subculture of manos fear and incel culture that's becoming increasingly mainstream.
02:15The show has also highlighted how parents may be unaware of what their young child is going through.
02:21How can we keep our children safe physically, emotionally and digitally?
02:26Take a look at this report and then we'll kickstart our conversation.
02:30It's crazy what your brain tells you to do when you're a kid.
02:35Netflix's miniseries, Adolescence, has sparked a global conversation about the impact of social media on teenagers.
02:43The four-part show explores how the ideas of online influencers or manfluencers can shape the views of children hooked on to smartphones and drive them to violence.
02:54The show has shed light on toxic masculinity and its connection to online subcultures like the manosphere.
03:22Online spaces that amplify insecurities about appearances and romantic failures, which can escalate into misogyny.
03:31A few weeks ago, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met the creators of the miniseries and backed the call to screen the show in schools.
03:52In India too, the show has become a surprise hit, opening up conversations about the social media subculture that's luring young boys and men.
04:14You're a good, that's a great job.
04:16Poxo is a place that is definitely rising on these things in adolescence.
04:21AdolescenceAnn where we not have to heard, in which the m algu�i mandate of social media
04:29For I give an example of the mophing.
04:30Children see that we have put some features, and we don't have to fit some filters, and we have to do some editing.
04:37But ultimately even together it may be mophing.
04:40Adolescence has also put the spotlight on the generational gap in understanding the digital lives of teenagers.
05:10Disturbing trends, uncomfortable subjects and the sinister web of social media.
05:30Adolescence has struck a nerve by portraying the raw realities of teenage life in the digital age.
05:36With Kamaljeet Sandhu, Bureau Report, India Today.
06:06And I have questions as I'm sure you do too, swirling in my head.
06:11And I thought it's good to get together an international panel of high quality experts to try and make sense of what we've seen and what we need to do together.
06:22As parents, as schools, as society and as individuals living in the social digital age.
06:30Joining us are some experts who work deeply on these issues.
06:36I want to welcome first Professor Nishant Shah, Professor of Global Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
06:43I have Professor Srimati Basu, Chair of the Gender and Women's Studies in the Department at the University of Kentucky, College of Arts and Sciences.
06:53I have Dr. Amit Sen, Senior Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, one of India's most highly rated doctors.
07:01I have Rekha Krishnan, Chief Education Officer at the Education Today Trust, very well-known educationist.
07:08And with me in the studio for a parental perspective is my colleague, Tanisha Sangha.
07:12She also heads up India Today's social media unit.
07:16So thank you very much for joining us.
07:18I want to go across first and foremost to Professor Nishant Shah.
07:22Because I was reading what some Bollywood filmmakers said about adolescence.
07:26They said that this breaks every stereotype of what Indians like in a series.
07:32You know, it's a slow burner, gut-wrenching.
07:35We like Tamasha.
07:36We like tabloid.
07:38And this is the antithesis of that.
07:40And yet, it's not just a global sensation.
07:42It's a massive sensation on Indian OTT as well.
07:46You know, can you begin, Professor Shah, by explaining what you think is the reason why adolescence has sparked the kind of debate, the kind of concerns that it has in them?
07:58We'll build it from there.
07:58Sure.
08:00Thank you, Rahul.
08:01It's such a pleasure to be here.
08:03Thank you for having me.
08:04And it's such a pleasure to be a part of such an incredible panel as well.
08:09I think from a lot of our research in just tracking how social media is responding to adolescence at the Digital Narrative Studio,
08:16I think we think that this has become such a global phenomenon because we are used to seeing hatred on social media.
08:25And we are used to seeing the fear of the other on social media.
08:30What adolescence does, perhaps, is shows us the fear of ourselves.
08:34I think we recognize that within this extremely toxic environment that this very small miniseries exists, there is all of us.
08:42We are there in different roles.
08:44We are there as parents.
08:45Sometimes we are even there as children, as bystanders, as people who are witnessing these things happening and feeling so helpless.
08:52So I think what instinctively the series is doing is giving vocabulary to a lot of unease that a lot of us feel while watching what's happening on social media.
09:03I don't think there is anybody who is online and doesn't know the amount of hatred which is being platformed by these different social media platforms.
09:11But it gives us a vocabulary to say, I understand this.
09:15This is something that we are feeling helpless against.
09:17And I think it's becoming a global sensation in two ways.
09:22One, it's making us realize our own helplessness in this system.
09:26But the more positive thing is that it has made people come together and talk about it.
09:31The fear is not a negative one.
09:33The fear is one which is making people step out of their comfort zone and saying, let's have a conversation.
09:38Because I see myself in this and I see other people in it.
09:42And can we try and think about what exactly is being tabled and not just how good it's made or how horrifying it is, but what can we collectively do to start changing things?
09:53So, I think one of the biggest draw for a lot of conversations that we've been tracking is actually people saying, there is something that's broken and we know it, but there is space for repair.
10:05And we have a responsibility to begin this repair process together.
10:09Dr. Amit Sen, the fact that teenagers, particularly in their late teens, would be dealing with issues like this.
10:16You know, people would remember from their own time, but the fact that, you know, you just about entered your teens and are having to deal with these kind of issues.
10:25Explain how you think social media has changed what young teens are having to deal with on an hour by hour, day by day basis relative to what, you know, people like myself and even you and others would have dealt with growing up,
10:38where it was more about going out and playing and dealing with school bullies or playground bullies rather than social media bullies.
10:46Yeah, so, again, thank you very much, Rahul, for having me in this panel.
10:55Yes, I think that times have changed dramatically.
10:58I think one thing many of us are conscious of is the rate of change and how the last 20 years, we've probably seen more change than the previous 200.
11:07And our young people bear the brunt of it.
11:10And a large part of that perhaps comes amplified by the digital space.
11:15So it's not as if adolescent angst or turmoil or the rapid changes, you know, young people go through was not a part of our lives.
11:23However, the way it is interacting with a larger environment and the access that young people have to spaces in society, which are extremely damaging, conflict ridden, violent, pull off, you know, naming, trolling, shaming and what have you.
11:47All that they have to contend with from a very early age.
11:50And I think one of the things that we as the adult community have not been able to or failed our children with is to be able to draw those boundaries, to protect them from some of the influences of this.
12:02Of course, you know, the digital space is such that we have to, in a way, sign up to it because so much of the other stuff like education, entertainment, social connections also happen through it.
12:15So there is no way that we can keep our youngsters completely away from it in today's day.
12:19However, the way the social media impacts them is not just about the time they spend on it, but also they carry it with them everywhere they go.
12:28So, you know, for instance, when we used to go to school, even if academics were staffed or there was some bullying that went on, there was some heartache or jealousy that happened, you came back home perhaps in a safe environment.
12:41You went to the playground, which was yet another environment, and you left all that behind.
12:46Whereas now, the social media follows you everywhere. So if a child has a gadget and, you know, a phone or a, you know, an iPad, it goes everywhere.
12:55It goes to their bedrooms, it even goes to their washrooms, you know, so you don't get any respite from it.
13:01And there is no downtime to be able to assimilate and make sense of what they are going through.
13:06And that is the biggest challenge I think we have.
13:08And of course, I watch this series and I wonder why are young kids so mean to each other?
13:15And I'm still trying to grapple, for example, even Katie, from what they tell us in the series and what I can imagine, seems to have been a pretty ordinary girl.
13:24And yet, for some reason, you know, she's pushing down this young boy, Jamie, and it impacts him in a way that he simply doesn't have the skill and the ability to deal with.
13:36You know, does social media make it worse? Or do you think this is just capturing what's always been true and now there's a public platform to express what would earlier have been expressed in smaller non-public groups?
13:47Yes, absolutely. I think that because it's amplified and because there is, you know, a constant exposure to some of the things that are happening in the world outside and what young people have access to.
14:04And the kind of things, the stuff that they get exposed to are messing with their minds in a big way, because at one end, it churns them up completely in terms of their feelings, their anger, their frustration, what they cannot get.
14:17Like in the incel movement, for instance, where, you know, young people feel that they're deprived of the love and the care of women for no fault of theirs and all those kind of different platforms, they kind of rile them up.
14:29And yet they do not have the cognitive faculties or their understanding of themselves to be able to manage it, to control it.
14:35So there's a huge mismatch in the kind of material that they're having to actually deal with and their ability to deal with it, actually.
14:42Right. So, which is why, again, there are so many governments which are now beginning to talk about at what age are we going to expose our kids to gadgets, to social media?
14:52It's about, it's a development.
14:53I'll come to that. We'll build on this just by and by.
14:55I just want to get initial thoughts from our panel on the show itself and why it struck such a deep chord.
15:01Professor Srimathi Basu at the Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, typically if somebody were to imagine a school bully,
15:09I don't know what's the right way to frame it, but you'd have a big boy who comes to your mind, right?
15:14Somebody who's much bigger physically and he's the bully, that there'd be this girl who's, from what we can gather, a pretty normal girl,
15:22and she is the one who's bullying this young boy.
15:25You know, that comes across as being quite striking.
15:28What do you make of the series and the kind of chord it struck?
15:31Hi, and thank you so much for, I'm so, I am trying to have a conversation about this show every opportunity I can,
15:40so it's especially exciting to do it with you.
15:43I think, you know, one of the things, I was just listening to the podcast on the, called the Culture Gap Fest,
15:50where they discuss various films, and folks were debating this idea, like, why don't we know what Katie thinks, right?
15:56What makes Katie, right? The film is about Jamie, and I think one of the critics there said that part of it is this inscrutability, right?
16:08We don't really understand, even through that show, even through that, you know, very telling encounter with the psychiatrist who comes to,
16:20I mean, the psychologist who comes to talk to him.
16:21What is the switch for him, right? We can tell. It's about love. It's about his father. It's about masculinity.
16:30It's about his physical stature and what he looks like, but we don't know.
16:37And so we don't know with Katie, right? We don't know what forms the police take.
16:41Can I just reflect or I just want to ask you about this ideal childhood, right?
16:46I think, you know, I'm of an age where my school gang is always trying to get together,
16:53and they always imagine our school days as sort of idyllic that we played.
16:58I don't think, you know, growing up in India, it was all that idyllic, right?
17:02We were all under tremendous amounts of academic pressure.
17:06You know, I mean, I know from my school days, people who were incest survivors, you know, I know people who dealt with all forms of sexual assault as men and as women.
17:19There's, you know, I mean, I went to not an atypical high pressure school where people had vast amounts of mental illness.
17:28And so I wonder about this show, right?
17:31I wonder what makes Katie and Jamie by thinking about, is it the anonymity of social media or what's different?
17:37I think Amit just now said, right, is it that you carry it around with you?
17:42You know, so if just to go back a long way to Freud, actually masculinity is a tough process, right?
17:48Masculinity is a way of just sort of, I am not going to analyze psychology in front of a distinguished psychologist,
17:59but sort of this way of separating from a state of bliss to making your way in the world in a difficult manner.
18:07And so that's what we see.
18:09There's no script, right?
18:10So let me say one more thing that, you know, I was looking at the literature on incels maybe three years ago, right?
18:16And at that time, they were often identified with these really violent killers in various contexts, right?
18:22And now if you just look up on Google Scholar, if you just look up yourself, you'd see there's a lot more work on it.
18:28Some in linguistics, some in psychology.
18:30And what you see is a lot more anxiety and depression, right?
18:36So maybe in Jamie, we see a different version of that.
18:41And maybe in Katie, we see a sort of bully version of that, right?
18:45So, yeah.
18:46Tanisha, as a mother of two young children, what was swirling through your head as you're watching this four-part series?
18:53So, I was definitely very, very perturbed.
18:56And there are a couple of questions that I'm grappling with as a parent and as somebody who works in the social media space.
19:03Number one is, you know, this entire aspect of even being part of social media.
19:08There were a lot of things that I learned on the show itself, right?
19:11About the kind of language that children are using universally across social media.
19:15And that kind of made me realize that I need to play catch-up.
19:18As a parent, I can't think that what I know is enough.
19:22I'm thinking I'm not exposing my child to this aspect of YouTube or this aspect of Instagram.
19:26But I don't know what actually is out there at all.
19:29As a parent, there's a big generational gap.
19:31So, that is something that has come to me after watching the show.
19:35That I need to, as a parent, proactively catch up with what's going on in the online world.
19:41The second thing, of course, is that I don't understand whether social media or online,
19:46the manusphere that they're talking about, is an escape route for the children or there is no escape.
19:53So, I think those are the two questions that I'm really having to deal with.
19:56And the other thing that bothers me so much is that I think we as Indians, the country,
20:02I think we've resonated with this.
20:04And like you said, normally it's all drama and action and all of that.
20:07So, what is it about that series that seems to bother us so much as Indians?
20:12Rekha Krishnan, you're at the Vasant Valley School in the capital.
20:15You know, how have the reactions been amongst teachers, amongst academics?
20:21Looking at this, is this stuff that you already know?
20:24Of course, this is what's happening.
20:26Or do you think, are you really glad that these conversations are now finally taking place in full public view?
20:33Hi, Rahul.
20:34Thank you for having me on the show.
20:37As an educator, I think all of us as adults, not only as educators or even not even as adults,
20:43as members of the civil society, all of us know that this is happening in our children's lives,
20:48in our children's lives, in our lives.
20:51And children being more vulnerable than many others in the society are.
20:55So, it is something that we are aware of.
20:57We were aware of it.
20:58Yes, as Tanisha mentioned, we perhaps do not understand the language they have
21:03to express various challenges that they face or how they express themselves about various things.
21:08But this is a reality.
21:10I'm glad that a movie like Adolescence was made.
21:14And the fact that it has become so popular is because it is holding a mirror to us.
21:20It is showing a mirror to us about something which we as a group of people have refused to acknowledge
21:27or perhaps have not given it as much importance that we need to.
21:31It is there.
21:32There are many conversations amongst us as teachers, as parents, as parents of even older children.
21:38Because how are we going to manage the lives of these young children who are only 12, 13, 14 years old?
21:45So, yes, there's a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry, a lot of concern.
21:51But it is something that we have been aware of for many, many, many years.
21:55So, let's try and spend some time in the second part of this conversation discussing what do we need to do
22:02as parents, as schools, as society to deal with this reality.
22:08And, you know, Dr. Amit Sen, my biggest concern is what do I need to do as a father?
22:14So, I don't end up as Eddie Stephen Graham, the father in this series who is, you know,
22:18he's a plumber, he's trying to do his job as well as he can, keep his family going as all parents try.
22:25And yet, several things he does or doesn't do are what make Jamie what he ends up becoming.
22:32So, and he says, you know, we made them.
22:35So, what should parents, fathers and mothers be doing to try and ensure they don't have a Jamie on their hands?
22:41Can I just, you know, mention a few things that are perhaps contributing to what's happening with kids these days
22:50and then narrow down on the parenting bit, right?
22:53So, in the TV show, one of the things which was starkly demonstrated was the kind of atmosphere there was in school,
23:00the kind of aggression, bullying, othering, name-calling that was happening on the basis of race, of class.
23:07And in our context, it would be on caste and religion as well.
23:12So, a lot of that gets, it seeps into a school atmosphere.
23:16So, firstly, what's happening outside in the world today, the wars, the aggression that you see,
23:21the polarization, et cetera, is also seeping into it.
23:24And that's one of the key things take away from, in my mind, right?
23:29Then, of course, you have the parental position as to what have they done or not been able to do, right?
23:34And I think what oftentimes happens with parents as children grow up is we believe and feel that now they're independent enough to make their own decisions,
23:44especially when they step into teenage years, whereas actually what they're dealing with is something that they're not capable of dealing with at all.
23:52And to be able to actually continue with the conversations with them, to help them make the correct decision,
23:59we as parents have to be a lot more proactive and try to get into their world in a way that they will allow us.
24:06So, if we do it with, you know, in a kind of punitive way,
24:08Do they really open up about things like this?
24:12How do you get there?
24:13How do you, you just, if I ask my son what happened in school, I have a tough time finding out.
24:17I mean, are we now trying to get into his world beyond what he's willing to tell me?
24:20Yeah, yeah.
24:21How do I do it without irritating the hell out of him?
24:24I do, I do.
24:25So, you know, it's a tough one here because, you know, with adolescence,
24:28kids are already beginning to, you know, reach out to the world outside, outside the family
24:34and they're wanting to make other connections, etc.
24:36So, it becomes much harder to maintain that relationship.
24:39And that's where the parent's role has to become more proactive.
24:42You have to have the mind space and resources to be able to pull in and make an active effort
24:47to be a part of their life.
24:48So, the music they're listening to, the TV shows they're watching, the kind of friends
24:52they have, open up without judgment and not put your agenda out there to say that,
24:56you know what, I think this is the right thing for you.
24:59You know, I've told you so many times doing screen for more than two hours a week will,
25:04two hours a day is going to completely spot your grades.
25:07The moment we come from that kind of a positioning, the shutters come down.
25:10And they will, and they move away from you.
25:13So, the way to do it is really to build on the relationship, which actually builds the
25:18trust.
25:18And if you do that, if you're able to do that through the different developmental stages
25:22that your child is going through, then chances are that they will come back and share things,
25:28even things that, you know, they feel nervous about or they, you know, have a dilemma about
25:33or they have discomfort about.
25:35They might bring it to you only if you have that connect, if you have that relationship.
25:38And to be able to do that, we need to get into their world.
25:42Also, to know that each child is different, they're wired differently, and to respect that
25:47and to say that, I understand where you're coming from.
25:49I know why you don't go to the play field, because you don't like the hustle bustle and
25:53the physical contact.
25:54And I'm okay to play ball with you.
25:56I will come with you to, let's say, you know, an EDM concert.
26:01And I'm okay with doing that.
26:03Even though I don't like EDM or rap, I'll still do that for you.
26:06And I'm going to enter your world in your terms.
26:09If you're able to do that...
26:09Some parents would also think, like for example, sir, sir, sir, sir, for example,
26:13my father pushed me, not too much, but just gently to do things which I may or may not have wanted to do.
26:19I mean, for example, he was in the army.
26:20So, I'd climb ropes and run at a much younger age than I would have of my own volition.
26:27I played golf and tennis at a much younger age than I would have.
26:31And while at that time, I may not have been particularly delighted, in hindsight, I'm very glad that I did.
26:39Sure.
26:40So, Rahul, I'd ask you that, do you think that you have the same chance as your dad did in talking to your kids in today's day
26:48and get them to do things in the way, perhaps you did.
26:51No, but it was very different because he was in the army.
26:54One ustad would come wake me up at 7 o'clock and just take me running and climbing ropes.
26:59I mean, I didn't really have much of an option.
27:01I dare not do that with my son.
27:04So, you probably cannot do it because there is an opportunity that your son has to get into another world which you know nothing about.
27:12So, there's this danger and it's always lurking out there.
27:14And that's why I think, as parents, we are doubly cautious in doing something which will actually push them away from us.
27:21If we did that, then there are more chances that they will get influenced by and completely, you know, usurped by the social media, isn't it?
27:30And that's why we have to be much more careful today to be able to build those relationships a lot more sensitively and with mindfulness.
27:38I don't know whether that answers your question, but yes, it's much tougher to build and maintain relationships with children in today's day than it was perhaps for our parents.
27:46You know, my wife and I can just come to you for a private session later.
27:50I think that's something we may need.
27:52But I want to give an equal opportunity to all guests and I want to go across to Professor Shrimathi Basu on how should parents looking at this series and suddenly wrapping their head around like each emoji has a meaning.
28:05I mean, I'm clueless about most emojis and I'm wondering like how do I even find out that the color of the emoji or the color of the emoticon could have a whole different meaning from another color?
28:14Yeah, I was going to say that I am, you know, it's not like I'm a Luddite.
28:20I try to follow what I can. Right.
28:22But at any given point, my students are constantly educating me about all the things I'm missing if I even look at the scene.
28:30Right. So, yeah, I mean, so that's the curve.
28:33But, you know, I was going to kind of push back against the conversation you were having just before to say, I wonder if I'm the only non-parent here.
28:41I'm a teacher. Right.
28:43Right. So I think, you know, the record from India, but I also work as in my other research on family law, right, on family conflict.
28:53And and I, you know, I've taught many Indian students over the years and I just feel autonomy is our problem.
29:01Parents are famously over controlling. Parents are way too much in their children's lives.
29:07Right. So the question is how to do, you know, I mean, I don't know not to be the, you know, resistant voice here, but I think the question is, you know, especially for girls.
29:19Right. We don't so much about their lives is, in fact, released and controlled.
29:25I mean, I think I think of the ways we grew up. Right.
29:28That we often, you know, ran around in it's not that parents had access to our lives.
29:33We read all sorts of things. We, you know, worked with people.
29:37We I think it was healthy for us to have a life that our parents just generally think it's healthy for us to have lives,
29:44intellectual lives, emotional lives that is not instantly accessible to our parents.
29:50So the question is, are you over controlling as parents?
29:52I mean, if you were to be asked this question, you do want to give space, but you also want that they go play, do some cultural activities.
30:00I mean, that's a very tough balance.
30:01So here's what I think has changed. OK, when we were kids, we were not given the decision making powers till much later in life.
30:09I think as parents, as liberal, modern parents, we have started giving decision making in the hands of our kids much earlier.
30:16So, like you said, I think I think it may be problematic.
30:20I mean, I'm beginning to think that maybe since we're being so contemporary in our upbringing, we're saying, OK, you don't want to do this.
30:27Don't do it. Do you? You don't want you don't want to play this sport.
30:29Don't do it. When we were growing up, there was no option.
30:31Like you said, you've got to do this. This is what you've got to do.
30:34So I don't actually have to think, do I do this or do I do this?
30:37That decision making is done for me and maybe I wasn't ready for it.
30:40So that was the best way to do it. Right.
30:42But I think modern day parenting is changing that a little bit.
30:46We're leaving it to the kids and then maybe they're not ready to take the right decisions.
30:50Professor Shah, do you agree?
30:52Is it even possible to take decision making rights away from the children because they could just like rebel and push back very hard?
31:00So I will also have to confess that I'm not a parent and I've never been a parent, not even of a plant.
31:05So I wouldn't really be a good person to answer about what parents should do.
31:10But I think there are a couple of things that are worth noticing.
31:12So we do a lot of research on radicalization of young people online.
31:16Sometimes it's around gender lines, but also it's around race lines and so on.
31:20And there are two things which have come up like repeatedly in the research.
31:24One is that while you might not want to be a certain kind of a parent, you have to realize that your young teenager wants to be a certain kind of an individual because they do live in a different kind of a society.
31:35And what has been very helpful in recognizing is that when you think of the child, not as a child, but as a young adult and somebody who is a stakeholder, right, who co-creates the household with you, you kind of stop thinking of the child as a beneficiary or somebody who does not know or somebody who does not realize what's happening.
31:57I think the breakthrough moment in adolescence also was that it was the inspector's son who could actually decode what is happening within that space.
32:05I think a lot of young people want to be a part of the solution.
32:08In the research that we have done, specifically thinking around cyberbullying and gender-based violence, a lot of young people, it's not as if they don't know the problem.
32:18And it's also as if they don't have ideas about the solution.
32:21The frustration comes when they are not thought of as people who have the capacity to organize, to govern, to be a part of decision making, which is not to say that we now say, OK, here you are, here is the problem, just do what you want to do.
32:36But it is really trying to say, how do you involve them in the decision making practices?
32:42How do you make them a part of the conversation?
32:45And the kids who keep on going into online radicalized spaces are people who generally feel that they don't have a voice, either in their schools or in their homes, about what kind of solutions can be done.
32:57I think in adolescence, if only Jamie had the capacity to go and say, this is a problem and that I think I know what a solution is and will you help me operationalize that solution, there might have been a different story.
33:11What could have been a solution given the circumstance of him being bullied by a school metaphase?
33:14What does an ideal, what does the solution look like to you?
33:19It would have to be multi-pronged.
33:21I think we will have to recognize that there is no one size fit all solution.
33:26But there are three or four dimensions which constantly come up.
33:29One, it is important for kids not to be isolated and feel like they are a part of a community.
33:35So while you might not be able to make your kid, you know, run the ropes and climb the hoops and play cricket, there is a possibility that you constantly cultivate in them the idea that there is a community that's larger than the home.
33:47Especially in urban environments where kids are often isolated and social media becomes their only community space, it's important to foster kind of physical community spaces.
33:56As somebody who educates young people, I know you get 18-year-olds in classrooms often, one of the things that we constantly talk to them about is the production of a safe space, but more importantly, the production of a brave space.
34:10Safe spaces are nice.
34:12They are comfortable where people can actually talk about things that are bothering them and there will be no judgment and there will be no repercussions.
34:19But we build very hard in our classroom, we try to build brave spaces, spaces where you can be vulnerable.
34:25But this is a difficult question because especially in our countries like India, where women are always taught that if you encounter violence, you have to be quiet about it.
34:36And men are told that if you make yourself vulnerable, that's going to be a sign of weakness.
34:40How do you build that brave space where a person who's experiencing violence is able to voice it and a person who's experiencing emotional vulnerability is also able to voice it?
34:51I think it's these kinds of maneuvers which might be helpful.
34:54I think you make an important point about, I know that we have safe bubbles and safe spaces which schools talk about, Rekha Krishnan, but this idea that schools should have brave spaces where you can feel vulnerable.
35:05The flip side of that though is if a teenage boy starts talking about vulnerability, I mean, you can do it when you're much older and more evolved and people around you are more evolved.
35:13The guy could be, you know, just made fun of, be considered a pantsy and all kinds of stuff, right?
35:18I mean, there could be a very strong school reaction, you know, how does that play out given the reality of schools?
35:25So, the reality of schools is not as toxic as it was shown in adolescence, or that is what I would like to believe.
35:34It was, I think, a very, very exaggerated portrayal of what school community looks like.
35:41There was a lot of toxicity in that community.
35:43Now, I think I would like to disagree with the earlier speaker because I don't think school communities today, even in a country like India, because there's a lot of talk about how India is still a step behind the rest of the world as far as education and norms and expectations from students are concerned.
36:04In our school, there are many, many, and most schools, there are many instances, there are many Jamie's, all of us have been Jamie's in our lives, all of us have been Katie's in our lives, and we have dealt with Jamie's and Katie's in our schools, in our education spaces, in our personal spaces.
36:19I think the world is changing very slowly so, but there is a lot of strength in coming together, creating, having the knowledge that this place is safe for me.
36:31It is a place where I can go and talk without anyone judging me about my feelings, about my emotions, about my vulnerability.
36:41So schools, educators, parents, adults have to work together to create these safe spaces.
36:48And I want to say something over here as parents, and especially what Tanisha talks about being this new age, modern parenting style that is emerging.
36:57We all need to remember that we cannot become friends with our children.
37:05You know, very often we try to become friends with our children.
37:08We have to be that parent, we have to play that parent role, we have to draw those boundaries.
37:15But we should definitely try to become friendly parents, friendly teachers, without becoming their friends, because they will choose their friends, whether on the online platform or in person like we used, I used to, when I was growing up in this country.
37:31But sometimes the lines between friendship and permissibility gets very kind of interferes with parenting styles.
37:42We need to draw the line that we are parents, need to draw those lines for the children, create safe spaces in school, have conversations.
37:50You know, instead of controlling children, we need to be curious about their world, as somebody else said, understand their world.
37:57If it means understanding the lingo Gen Z uses.
38:01Today I work with, my colleagues are from Gen Z, people are millennials, constantly I'm asking them, how would you say this in your world?
38:09So be curious about them, try to understand their world, understand the music they listen to, and be there to guide them.
38:17I want to spend some time with Professor Sen, dealing with the incel culture, involuntary, celibacy, the idea that you are forced to be a virgin, because 80% of the women supposedly like 20% of the men, those who are brighter, more athletic, and that's something that 80% of the men are obviously not okay with.
38:37How do you deal with that, you know, the fact that you have a young child, for whatever reason in his own little head, feeling inadequate, and not good enough, and having those desires, or having those thoughts about women, and wondering if he's good enough.
38:55Like, how do you speak to kids about that, and help them overcome that? What should his dad have been doing?
39:02So, of course, there are a lot of influences, and some of it also comes from a home, and the patriarchy that you see in it.
39:10Even in the TV show, while it appeared that the parents are very mindful of how they bring up their children, the father talks about how he used to be beaten up by his father, with a belt, mercilessly, and yet he's tried not to do that.
39:24But if you saw their interactions, the father had a temper issue, and all the other, the women particularly, were walking on eggshells.
39:32They were constantly, you know, asking him, and anticipating that something will go wrong.
39:38So, those kind of dynamics in a family, or outside in the world that they see, including these websites, so, you know, usually what happens is that when a child is growing up,
39:48and they see glimpses of some of this in a family, or perhaps in their immediate community, they begin to then explore the possibility.
39:55So, as you, I'm sure all of us are aware that the dynamics between girls, boys, they're growing up, men and women, is changing rapidly.
40:04For the better, there's no question about it.
40:05But as that is happening, more and more young men, or men in general, are feeling threatened about their position.
40:12And when they do feel threatened, some of the responses to that is to do with, you know, creating a space like Manosphere or Incel.
40:20And so, it's almost like saying that you dare not talk like that.
40:23You dare not stand up for yourself.
40:25We'll show you, right?
40:26And the moment, and of course, there are opportunities or there are experiences that young people will have, or young boys will have as they grow up,
40:33where they find it very easy to align to that and say, oh, yeah, that's one way to be.
40:38And I can feel extremely powerful, and I can have my way if I took that position.
40:43And that's when they gravitate towards spaces like that.
40:46In your experience and what you're seeing around you, how big or how real is the Incel culture problem in India?
40:58So, yeah, I mean, it doesn't show up in those specific terms.
41:03It's not as if young people come and talk specifically about Incel.
41:06But in terms of the violence that you see, you know, the transgressions that we see, it's there all the time.
41:12And we see that in, let's say, a young woman who has come to us and with depression, anxiety or body image disturbances would have experienced certain things.
41:23In their school or college, which has made them some men who have got into trouble for the boundaries they've crossed.
41:29And we see that all the time in our work.
41:31And again, like I was saying, that some of what we can do about it is have these conversations.
41:36They can happen at home.
41:37They can happen in safe spaces in school.
41:39And they can definitely happen with the older kids.
41:42So I really liked what Nishant said about including young people in this conversation.
41:48And to be able to do that from the time they're 14, 15, have a space where you start talking about gender, about diversity, about boundaries of what is OK or not OK.
41:58And these spaces can be created.
42:00It's a collaborative effort, you see.
42:01So, you know, families, parents, schools, policymakers, we all have to come together to say this is really important.
42:09This is vital because it can show up not only in mental health struggles, which we see all the time, but also in the kind of violence that we see outside in the world.
42:17And it could happen in microcosms, like in relationships and murders, but it can also happen at a much larger scale in terms of riots and things that happen in a much larger scale in communities today in terms of wards, perhaps.
42:32So all that actually emanates from these positions that young people begin to take very early in life.
42:42And I think that if we are able to create these safe spaces for discussion, for collaboration, where young people also participate in the decision making.
42:49And in fact, it makes every sense to do that because, you know, when we were young, our parents probably knew a little bit about how our adult life will pan out like.
42:57Do we know what's going to happen to our kids in 20 years from now? The world is so fluid and changeable that all we can do is help them think on their feet, help them become adaptive rather than tell them what to do, what is wrong or right.
43:09And if we are able to give them those skills of thinking, of reflecting, of collaborating and cooperating with each other, we'll probably, hopefully have a better world in 20, 30 years time.
43:18Sure. So in the third and the last part of this conversation, I want to talk about devices.
43:25You know, what's the right age to give access to devices? What kind of access do you give when?
43:31It's something which all parents deal with. And no one quite knows what to do.
43:35So let me put that question first to Dr. Amit Sen on, you know, what, there's no right, there's no wrong.
43:41But what do you think parents should really do, you know, when it comes to giving access to, say, Instagram, giving access to Snapchat, giving access to a device itself?
43:51So, you know, the social media page, you know, where there is no boundaries of control over what you can see or experience.
44:00I think the permission to use that should not come before the age of 13 at the earliest.
44:06Some countries are saying it should be 16.
44:08But even if we are able to draw that line at 13, with some degree of supervision and discussion about it and preparation of children who step into that.
44:17Of course, you can't take away gadgets from kids' lives because very early, even in school nowadays, you are asked to do your homework, a lot of creative work, perhaps even get your entertainment from there.
44:29So that could start maybe at six o'clock, but there needs to be, sorry, at six years.
44:34But there can be a categorization.
44:37You can sit down with your child and say, so what are you using your screen for?
44:40And how much time are you using for, let's say, academic or schoolwork?
44:44How much are you doing it for creativity and artwork?
44:47What are you doing for entertainment?
44:49And what are you doing for social connect?
44:51And where is the social media come?
44:52And how do you, at the moment we have these discussions at homes and in schools, then children and young people are better able to categorize these and sometimes be very responsible about it too.
45:03Of course, I mean, if they feel pushed to a corner, they'll probably do things behind your back.
45:08But these discussions help to, even from a parent's point of view, to be able to put down boundaries and say that you can have screen for maybe three hours.
45:16But for social media or for entertainment, you can only have it for half an hour.
45:20And let's see how we can factor that in.
45:22How we can keep a score of that.
45:24So, that's one way of going through.
45:26The fact that, you know, you're a working mother and therefore time is a constraint.
45:33And secondly, you obviously want to keep an eye, but you don't want to overdo it.
45:38And therefore, you know, when it comes especially and since you deal with social media, the concern that I also had was when you're looking at the reactions.
45:45I mean, to me, or even to the father in the series, they look in awkward, but there's so much deeper meaning, which, you know,
45:52how the hell are you supposed to find out?
45:54So, I think that, I think one thing that I did a long while ago is say that, okay, it's not about how much screen time, but what that screen time really means.
46:02I mean, is it doom scrolling?
46:03Is it some watching something that's not going to help in any way?
46:06Are you creating, are you creating, learning, connecting with your family members for that?
46:11Maybe online is fine.
46:12I mean, I can't possibly take the screens away from my kids.
46:14That's not, never going to happen.
46:16But I think the one conversation I find extremely useful is actually, firstly, I think this thing of thinking that the kids don't know.
46:23Actually, they know quite a bit already.
46:25So, I talk to them about AI algorithms.
46:27I talk to them about how social media may be triggering a certain response, what cyber bullying is.
46:32I think this kind of conversation has become very commonplace in our house.
46:35That has helped a lot.
46:37So, that, I mean, I've just kept it, I've sort of accepted that they understand these things at a much earlier age than I would expect them to.
46:44Rekha Krishnan, you know, how are you at school dealing with devices and the advice that you're giving to parents and to the community about when children should be allowed on Instagram, for example?
46:58So, students, as Dr. Sen said, and as the law requires, I think ideally should come in.
47:07The later they come into social media platforms, the better it is because they have by then hopefully developed the maturity to deal with various kinds of influences.
47:17So, 13, though, is too young for me, but I think 13 is right because we talk to them constantly about how to use social media.
47:25We do not require students to bring any gadgets to school.
47:29So, no students will be seen around using gadgets in the school, no matter what, unless and until the teacher is working with them on something which they need for their assignments or their learning.
47:40As far as time is concerned, I think a very good way of doing this would be to talk to them and make rules with the students, with the children.
47:51Because a lot of us as parents tend to make rules for the children.
47:57Instead of making rules for the children, I would suggest make rules with them because then there is ownership for the rules that are being made for them.
48:05And once they have made the rules along with support from you, the probability of them following those rules through being honest to that will be much higher.
48:16There is a greater amount of accountability if the rules have been made with them.
48:20I think the very big thing that happens in no matter what social media, no social media, wherever we go, whether we live in a very fluid world, what is happening is relational trust.
48:32We need to build that relationship of trust with our children.
48:36And for that relational trust to develop between a parent and child, we need to have conversations, conversations and more conversations.
48:46Not conversations to judge them or talk to them, but conversations where you are the listener.
48:54The parent is the listener.
48:56The child is the one talking.
48:58Very often when we have conversations with our children, the parent talks, the teacher talks and the child listens.
49:04It should be less teacher talk, less parent talk, more child talk.
49:10And please build relational trust.
49:12One way is to do more child talk, more talk from the children rather than more talk from us lecturing them constantly.
49:21They do not want us to lecture them at all.
49:24They know they're smart.
49:25They understand.
49:27They just want somebody to listen to them.
49:28They want a sounding board.
49:30So, remember being a firm yet friendly parent is important.
49:35I know they might sound as oxymorons.
49:38Being a firm yet friendly parent, but that is what we need.
49:41And listen to their world.
49:43Understand their world.
49:44And no devices.
49:45Except that the person giving the lecture never thinks it's a lecture.
49:49He thinks it's well-meaning.
49:50And he's certain it's not a lecture, except it sounds like one.
49:53And that's a whole different conversation altogether.
49:56Professor Basu, this idea of boys and girls having to deal with notions of supposed inadequacy.
50:04You know, the boy thinks he's going to be a virgin for a long time.
50:08The girl thinks she's not good enough.
50:10The boys are chasing other girls, etc.
50:12How do you think parents should be trying to deal with these issues with their children?
50:19Yeah, I actually was just thinking from the former conversation as well that we just were
50:27reading something about how to educate people in a broader topic.
50:33So my answer to you is to that people advise folks for parents to start much more broadly talking about,
50:43you know, what your body is, to be vulnerable in their conversations as well.
50:48I fully agree that you should hear from the child and hear where they are.
50:52But in the examples that you cited, right, if you put it in the context of not just always,
51:01will you have sex, will someone like you, will there be romance, right?
51:05But what does it mean for you to have a body, for you to have sexuality, for you to be an
51:12autonomous being in the world?
51:13So and for there to be, just as the way Tanisha was saying, for there to be internet literacy,
51:20but there also to be sort of social and cultural literacy around the things, right?
51:24So there is nothing, you know, in life, there doesn't have to be anything horrible
51:28about not being able to get a date when you're 10, right?
51:33If you see it as part of something else or, you know, the overvalue we place in romance,
51:38what if we put it in the context of, you know.
51:40Professor Nishant Shah, on the issue of devices, you know, Tanisha spoke about trying to ensure
51:47that children are spending time on e-learning rather than doom scrolling.
51:52The fact also is that all these social media companies and these videos are designed in
51:59a way that something which is meaningless appears more fun than something that involves
52:05the application of the mind and learning.
52:07How should we deal with that?
52:10You have already such great points.
52:12Maybe two things to add to this is that we need to recognize that technologies are not
52:17tools, they are actually conditions that we live within, right?
52:22So there's a wonderful media theorist called Wendy Chun who once said that the more our devices
52:27become transparent, the more they become opaque.
52:31There's a lot of things happening behind the screen or behind the device.
52:35And I think putting intentionality onto this device and trying to understand that while it
52:40looks like it's a convergence device where everything can happen, you need to take the choice
52:45of what needs to happen with it, it is already a very good indication.
52:48But I do think that the one thing that's missing from our conversation right now is actually
52:53accountability on behalf of these platforms.
52:56The incel movement is not just a social, political or a gendered movement, it's a technological
53:00movement.
53:01It's not as if misogyny or homophobia did not exist before the internet came into being.
53:06But what we have seen is social media companies who platform hatred because hatred leads to
53:13engagement and who are able to constantly mobilize these people into becoming influencers.
53:19The influencers of Manosphere did not become influencers because there was a space for them.
53:24They became influencers because they generated such insane amount of traffic and engagement
53:29for these platform companies that there is a technological element to this here.
53:35And I think more than anything else, we need to be able to rely upon our governments to
53:40actually hold this platform to companies accountable and set up better regulation.
53:45Because it's a matter of scale.
53:48You as an individual parent, I as an individual educator, we even as a small group of concerned
53:53people are never going to be able to fight the algorithmic scale of violence that we are seeing
53:59in these spaces.
54:00And so it would be useful to recognize that it's not so much the monitoring of screen time,
54:04but it's really the monitoring of what these companies are and what are the kinds of
54:09information that they are feeding.
54:11One of my favorite sayings always is that asking how to keep people safe on the internet
54:17is like asking how to de-weaponize the gun.
54:20Because you literally built an instrument which is built for mass destruction.
54:26It is built to isolate and disconnect and foster hatred.
54:29And then you are saying, what are the tweaks you need to make to keep people safe?
54:32So maybe we need a radical rethinking about what our technological conditions are and where
54:38the responsibility and the accountability is also going to be.
54:42You know, so British Prime Minister Keir Starmer watched the series with his children.
54:46There have been conversations in the British Parliament demands that this be made compulsory
54:51viewing.
54:52Forget whether that happens or not.
54:54If you watch this conversation and I have no clue what I'm talking about, I strongly suggest
54:57you watch the show.
54:58So, that being said, you know, there's a lot to think about as parents, as schools,
55:04as society.
55:05I don't know if we found the answers, but we were able to take forward the conversation.
55:09And for that, Professor Nishant Shah, Professor Srimati Pasu, Dr. Amit Sen, Rekha Krishnan,
55:15and Tanisha Srimati for joining me on the news track.
55:18Thank you very much.
55:20Do I want to be an adolescent?
55:21Again, I'm not quite sure, but I do want to try and help my children.
55:25And I'm sure so do you.
55:26So, let's start thinking and probably finding out more with some of what you've just heard.