Dear global education leader,
The Wall Street Journal this week published an investigation into Facebook. Among its many damning findings was that Facebook’s own research shows that Instagram — which it owns — is toxic for young women and girls.
“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from an internal presentation from 2019. “Thirty-two per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” a separate March 2020 slide presentation concluded. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.”
It is hardly breaking news that young people are stressed out. According to a survey of teachers conducted by MeeToo, a digital, anonymous peer-to-peer support platform for young people aged 11–25, 97% of teachers think mental health issues are getting worse among students. And yet only 18% feel they have adequate training to help.
Nearly half (49%) of students turn to teachers first with their mental health concerns. And yet MeeToo’s data show that teachers get, on average, two hours of mental health training a year with 42% of staff reporting that they had received no mental health and wellbeing training at all last year.
This week’s podcast features Suzi Godson, co-founder of MeeToo (and sex and relationship columnist for The Times). We discuss how schools need better insight into the issues young people face, more training for teachers to support students, and more robust systems of support so the burden isn’t all on teachers. MeeToo, which is moderated by trained mental health workers, now packages its data — which is all anonymous — for local authorities, NHS clinical commissioning groups and schools (as well as researchers) so they can see what students are actually worried about and target help accordingly. One in four female users aged 11–13 are self harming, Godson says. Are schools talking about that early enough? She argues they are not.
Amid the justified concern for young people, it’s important to remember that all of this takes a toll on teachers, too. In fact, when MeeToo asked teachers about their students’ mental health problems, they also asked about teachers’ mental health. Their alarming responses led Godson and her co-founder to create a mirror app for teachers — anonymous, online peer-to-peer support for teachers where they can, as Godson says, “offload to people who understand what they are dealing with”.
Although social media has emerged as a useful straw man on which to hang all the world’s ills, there’s plenty more causing young people distress. But, as Facebook’s own research shows, it is a cesspool of misery for many. The least we can do is provide a platform to showcase humans pulling each other up rather than pushing them down.
Stay curious
Jenny
