Teens: the private lives of the Twitter generation laid bare

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/mar/24/teens-channel-four-documentary

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If you believe the hype, teenagers are but a blip on the sonogram of modern history, invented in the 1950s as a marketing ploy. But the problems that face the various awkward, weeping creatures yet to grow into their bodies or personalities are the same as they ever were.

Teens proves this by laying bare adolescents’ private messages and social media exchanges and adding up these facets to make a whole. In practice, this means a traditional observational documentary with an added, tantalising layer of tweets, texts, Whatsapps and Google searches flashed up in Hollyoaks-style graphics. The opening episode concerns itself with friends Jess and Harry. Jess, I feel, has a bright future in student politics, which she’ll no doubt throw herself into with gusto when she finds the corridors of university aren’t actually buzzing hives of intellectualism and revolution. Currently, Jess is full of enthusiasm, roping people into handing out burgers to the homeless. “Jess is awesome,” says one new friend, dizzy on the hard stuff of random acts of kindness.

There’s something Jess is even more passionate about than philanthropic runs to McDonald’s, and that’s the Sun’s Page 3. It’s an issue close to her heart and she relates a sad tale about how, amid the general climate of tits-over-breakfast, she felt so plagued by inadequacy that she began editing her photos to make herself look skinnier. Discounting Jess’s Photoshop skills, this is a tale as old as time, or at least as old as printed media with hot girls in. Teens raises the question of whether teenagers in 2015 face any uniquely modern hardships, or just new ways to explore them. Anyway, Jess has found salvation in feminism and organised a debate about Page 3. “If you think about it,” says one of Jess’s male classmates, “if you take a vote of the public and say, ‘Do you like tits?’ there’s a lot of men who’d go, ‘Yeah. I like tits.’” It’s a compelling argument but it holds no truck with Jess. A fire burns in her eyes. The unfortunate commenter sinks down in his seat. Harry, sitting on the other side of the room, searches “is feminism bad?”.

They say wisdom is knowing how little you know and Harry embodies this philosophical nugget quite beautifully. His problem is that he’s a classic hedonist. He flings his study notes aside to woo an Instagram cutie. He loves to annoy the living daylights out of his family and post the results on Vine (Retweets: 7. Friend to Harry: “You’re out of order assaulting your dad”). His E-graded biology exam is testament to a lifestyle of instant gratification.

But his dissolution is also (kind of) useful. As some pass-agg tweets are pasted up onscreen, messages Jess treats like the outbreak of the third world war, Harry can afford to be philosophical. “Twitter beef is probably the most entertaining thing of, like, today’s society, to be honest,” he says. “It might kick off again tonight. Hopefully it doesn’t…” He goes on to give the prospect more consideration. “Ooh I don’t know. It would be interesting, wouldn’t it?” he adds. Harry knows where he’s going wrong, but blow me down if the range of delicious possibilities running through his mind isn’t very difficult for him to ignore.

Next to Jess, Harry may seem as if he has some catching up to do, maturity-wise. But Harry’s problems don’t look all too different from those of a good deal of grown-arse adults. In fact, you can only wonder whether the gap between sensible teenagers and infantilised adults is closing, and what will come in its place. I’ll hand over to Jess. “They say it’s the best part of your life and the worst part of your life,” she says. “It’s a weird kind of paradox, teenage years.”

Adolescence is a minefield, and I feel faintly sorry for these kids. To a soundtrack of Oasis (and no one born after 1991 and in full possession of their faculties wants to listen to that) they lament what little bastards their peers can be, then go home to eight hours of daily revision and parental oppression. All that and they’re not even old enough to get legally pissed.