Cyber-bullying: Young People’s Mental Health

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He should not be modest about his contribution, which was absolutely fantastic and gratefully received.

To say a little more about the context, recent research by the Prince’s Trust suggested that young people’s wellbeing has declined over the last 12 months and is now at its lowest level since the study was first commissioned in 2009. What is interesting as well is that this is not just a British phenomenon. A recent article by NBC in the United States, citing research from Johns Hopkins University, referred to an acute mental health crisis happening among members of the youngest generation of Americans, with, as the article put it,

“critical implications for the country’s future.”

Similar data is emerging from France and Germany.

Much of the debate in this House has been about a cure—about how we go about fixing the problems after they have emerged. We have debated achieving parity of esteem, funding child and adolescent mental health service beds closer to home, and so on. All that is vitally important, of course, but equal attention must be paid to prevention. Why is the surge happening in the first place? How can we stop it taking root?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and I sought his permission beforehand to intervene. With 20% of young people—that is one in five—indicating that their fear of cyber-bullies makes them reluctant to go to school, does he agree that much more must be done to thwart the faceless keyboard warriors who are making the lives of so many young people so very difficult?

[Alex Chalk]

I do agree. The hon. Gentleman makes the point very powerfully, and in a moment I will develop why I agree with him so wholeheartedly. I found from speaking to young people that the role of social media has become impossible to ignore. It is not the only issue, of course, but it is a recurrent theme. Although there appeared to be a correlation between the rise of social media and the decline in adolescent mental health, I, colleagues and hon. Members wanted to know if there was causation, too. The report provided powerful evidence to suggest that there is.

By way of context, I should make it clear what the inquiry and this debate are not about. The inquiry was not set up to blame all the world’s ills on the internet or social media. My view is that social media is broadly a force for good. Equally, the internet as a whole fosters social mobility and opportunity. It spreads ideas and enhances freedom across the world. The inquiry did not seek to address all the concerns posed by social media use either. It deliberately left out the issues of fake news, sexting, sleep deprivation and others. All those are important but have been traversed elsewhere, and dealing with them would have made the report unwieldy and unfocused.

Instead, the report and this debate are about one issue only, cyber-bullying, and that is because the evidence from young people, including those we spoke to in the inquiry, suggested it was the single biggest risk factor in mental ill health associated with social media use. We wanted to drill down on that by taking evidence not just from young people but from experts in brain development, and the evidence from more than 1,000 young people was clear: cyber-bullying can be utterly devastating. It is relentless and inescapable. We heard harrowing evidence from young people taken to the very edge of despair. No one is saying of course that bullying does not exist in the analogue world, but it is this added toxic cyber layer, with its extraordinary capacity to amplify torment, that can prove so destructive.

What is so troubling is that the inquiry also found that children are using social media at a very early age —61% had a social media account at the age of 12 or under—and for a long time too: nearly half use it for more than three hours a day and nearly 10% check their social media feeds between midnight and 6 am, with girls twice as likely as boys to be high-intensity users. A troubling proportion—68%—of young people were affected by cyber-bullying, and the medical evidence showed that its impact could last into adulthood, with what one expert called

“lasting consequences on the adolescent brain”.

It seems that this searing experience can be a scarring one too.