Social Media has not (fully) taken over the Youth!

By: Ken Loftus, Clinical Director at The Sunlight Centre NFP Ltd.

600 male students aged between 15 to 17 were asked their preferred communication between people they fancy / dating and the results were surprising!

In an age where we see people buried in their devices some of the older generation may believe that the younger folk are missing out, that “Ain’t what it used to be” and other Grandpa Simpson quotes!

Ken Loftus, Clinical Director of the Sunlight Centre who carried out the study said he himself was surprised at the response. “I thought that we were going to get quite a different outcome, but in science we can learn from any result, especially the one we don’t expect.”

One of the main questions asked in the study was: If you are flirting / chatting with someone you like/fancy/dating, please pick the most used way below – Face to face, Over the phone, by text, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or Other.

The most used form of communication by the young men was Snapchat at 25%, the next answer, a close 2nd was the surprise, Face to Face at 24%. These young men are still talking to who they fancy the ‘old fashioned’ way! Texting came in 3rd (19%), Instagram (18%) and chatting over the phone came in last at 14%.

This shows how healthy it is to expose your children to peer social events, school socials, trips to the shopping centres and friends’ birthdays. Being able to maintain face to face conversation will increase their skill sets for when they leave school, and make sure they don’t focus too much in the world of social media.

The other main question was: What is it about people you like / fancy / dating that you find most confusing? Some of the top answers were ones that have been around as we were living in caves!

This was not a multiple-choice question. The students were able to voice their own thoughts how they liked. The top three similar things they found confusing were:

How do I know if they like me?
What are they feeling?
Why do they say one thing then change their mind?

And some other very relevant responses that came out:

They text one thing but face to face, say another.
I cannot tell their mood over text.
I think I’m a nice guy, but stigma says women might not like nice guys and it is weak to be too agreeable.

The above shows that there is another level past the ‘birds and the bees’ that young students need to know about, the emotional quotient. How does one develop their emotional intelligent? Usually through their role models, yup, that’s you the parent!

For more information follow Ken @therapist_ken on IG or through the Sunlight Centre @sunlightcentre