Taking action on toxic masculinity 

On International Women’s Day, we observed that while there was still potential for improvement across a range of issues, there was mounting concern about the roles and responsibility of men — especially young men and boys.

Disquieting findings were issued by Ipsos, the multinational market research company, which pointed to bafflement and resentment by men of various ages who feel they have been left behind — and diminished — by what others describe as progress.

In the Irish sample, 42% felt they were being actively discriminated against. Almost at the same time, a damning report — The Lost Boys — was published by the Centre for Social Justice in Britain.

That debate reached a new crescendo this week when the Netflix drama Adolescence entered the political mainstream with its depiction of a knife murder involving teenagers.

It is a hard and harrowing watch, no more so than in the scenes between the 13-year-old Jamie Miller and the young child psychologist Briony Ariston — played by the Irish heritage actor Erin Doherty.

The plot embraces uncomfortable truths. The ineffective leadership of adults; poor parenting skills, accompanied by a lack of curiosity; the malign influence both of friends and people online; systematic bullying.

Of course, at the heart of it is a problem we have recognised for several years but have been terminally slow in addressing — the ubiquity of mobile phones in our lives.

It was last August that the Irish Medical Organisation called for smartphone and social media usage to be treated as a public health emergency, warning that the devices — and the content accessible on them — are “overwhelmingly destructive”.

“Our young people are exposed to a toxic mix ... that uses features such as infinite scroll to promote more activity, creating a vicious circle of use,” the organisation said, welcoming calls by the then health minister Stephen Donnelly and former education minister Norma Foley for wide-ranging bans.

Those thoughts are supported by Jack Thorne, who co-wrote Adolescence with the Merseyside actor Stephen Graham.

While there is plenty of evidence that savvy teenagers will always find a way around technical constraints placed on them by anxious parents, there were also disturbing moments in the programme which explored secret meanings contained in emojis used by youngsters.

While it is possible to overstate this — the red and blue pill symbols have their origins in The Matrix, a film which celebrates its 25th anniversary this summer — covert language and acronyms can be both inclusive and excluding.

They form part of the dialect of incels, a male grouping who believe themselves incapable of attracting women sexually.

Under Britain’s new Online Safety Act, platforms have been told to consider “coded language” — but emojis will only be seen as harmful if they incite hatred.

Given that there are thousands of these symbols with multiple contexts, there is obviously a tall task ahead for experts in linguistics.

In his Richard Dimbleby lecture this week, the former England football manager, Gareth Southgate, worried that “callous, manipulative, and toxic influencers” are replacing traditional father figures in society and creating mental health issues among young men.

There is plenty of recent evidence to support his conclusion.

Southgate’s theme was “building belief and resilience in a younger generation”.

Programmes such as Adolescence are superb at identifying the problems. But it is we, collectively, who have to deliver solutions.

Moving more quickly on curtailing social media during school hours would be a good starting point. Ending a decade of government and corporations wilfully hard-wiring requirements for phone ownership into social citizenship and civic participation would be another.