‘Adolescence' Has People Talking. Its Writer Wants Lawmakers to Act.

New York Times

24-03-2025

The British screenwriter and playwright Jack Thorne has written several TV dramas that he hoped would stir political debate. Until last week, they never quite took off.
Then, his new show, 'Adolescence,' appeared on Netflix.
In the days since its March 13 release, the four-part drama about a 13-year-old boy who murders a girl from his school after potentially being exposed to misogynist ideas online has become Netflix's latest hit. According to the streamer, it was the most watched show on the platform in dozens of countries after it debuted, including the United States.
In Britain, the show has been more than a topic of workplace chatter. It has reignited discussion about whether the government should restrict children's access to smartphones to stop them from accessing harmful content.
Newspapers here have published dozens of articles about 'Adolescence,' which Thorne wrote with the actor Stephen Graham. A Times of London headline called it 'The TV Drama That Every Parent Should Watch,' and campaigners for a phone ban in schools have reported a surge in support.
In Britain's parliament, too, lawmakers have used the show to make political points. Last week Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the House of Commons that he was watching 'Adolescence' with his two children, and said that action was needed to address the 'fatal consequences' of young men and boys viewing harmful content online.
Thorne said in an interview that he was glad that the prime minister mentioned his show. Still, he added, he wanted British lawmakers to do more than talk about his drama: He wants them to pass a law that bans young people from accessing social media until they are 16.
'Adolesence' has appeared at a moment of growing global concern about the impact of smartphones on children's health and social development. Last year, Australia barred children under 16 from social media (though the law includes many exemptions). In February, Denmark's government announced it would soon ban smartphones in schools, something France has already implemented in primary and middle schools.
There seems to be no appetite for a similar law among Britain's governing Labour Party. But there is a long history here of television shows that transform topics of social concern into the most urgent political issues of the day, going back to the 1960s, when the BBC broadcast gritty dramas like Ken Loach's 'Cathy Come Home.' That show shone a light on the plight of homeless people, a topic that was little discussed at the time.
More recently, after the 2024 broadcast of 'Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,' a drama about hundreds of real postal workers who were wrongly convicted of theft, Rishi Sunak, the prime minister at the time, quickly announced a law to exonerate them.
James Strong, the director of 'Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,' said that part of the reason 'Adolesence' was stirring so much debate was that viewers could easily relate to the show, which centers on a normal, loving family.
It also tapped into a social concern that was 'ready to explode,' Strong said.
Thorne said he began working on 'Adolesence' about two-and-a-half years ago when Graham, the actor, contacted him to say he had been shocked by a series of murders in which boys had stabbed girls to death, and wanted to write a show that explored why those crimes had occurred.
Initially the pair struggled to work out a motivation for the show's main character, Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), until an assistant suggested the pair research the culture of incels, men who see themselves as involuntarily celibate and rail against women online.
Thorne said he bought a burner phone and set up new social media accounts on it, then spent six months 'diving into very dark holes' of incel content online. It made him realize, he said, that the grim arithmetic of the incel worldview — the belief that 80 percent of women are attracted to just 20 percent of men, so boys must manipulate girls if they want to find sexual partners — could also seem 'incredibly attractive' to many young men.
The research, Thorne said, also left him terrified that his son, age 8, would encounter such ideas when he gets a smartphone.
Daisy Greenwell, a founder of the organization Smartphone Free Childhood, said the show spoke to that 'deep sense of panic' that many parents felt, but 'the government is so far behind the public on this.'
Supporters had been discussing moments from the show that made them cry in the organization's WhatsApp group, Greenwell said, and many had singled out the series's third episode, in which a psychologist, played by Erin Doherty, questions Jamie about his views on women. During the exchange, Jamie transforms from a sweet, innocent-seeming boy into a snarling, rage-filled teen, and Greenwell said that change had upset and scared many parents.
In an interview, Doherty that the actors spent two weeks rehearsing the episode, which, like each part of 'Adolescence,' is a single shot lasting about an hour. They then recorded 11 takes, she said, and the director chose the last one.
She could only hazard guesses about why the show was striking such a nerve, Doherty said, but added that some of the appeal could be that the show wasn't didactic. Although many viewers were focusing on smartphone use as a trigger for the boy's murderous actions, the show's script had 'the bravery to not give any answers,' she said.
And even though Thorne, the co-writer, has been calling for laws to limit smartphone use in news media interviews, he said his show never laid the blame solely on technology. In 'Adolescence,' he said, the boy's school is underfunded and teachers are too stressed and overworked to stop bullying, the police are ignorant of how teenagers talk to one another on social media and the boy's friends and family were oblivious to what he was capable of.
There is an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but Thorne said it also 'takes a village to destroy a child.' He added that he just wanted 'Adolescence,' 'to persuade that village to help these kids.'