Fear of taking part.

Over here at The Institute for Talk HQ, we have carefully set out a plan for the content of these newsletters week to week.

However, sometimes, something comes along that means that the plan needs to be adjusted, so bear with us as we take a bit of a detour…it’s worth it, because this week’s ideas are essential reading for anyone who ever has any contact with young people. Which is, let’s face it, pretty much all of us.

WTF is FOTP?

Over the last few months, we have seen increasing numbers of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt kicking around: parents, teachers, youth workers and policy makers have clearly been caught by the ideas put forwards in this excellent book.

Whilst not wanted to summarise every aspect of the book - if you haven’t read it yet, you really should - there are a few interesting points that are pertinent to this update. Firstly, young people are facing challenges that are very alien to the adults who are supporting them with these challenges: the things we think are going on aren’t the things that are actually going on. Secondly, young people are more anxious, or, at least, their anxiety is better known and understood, than young people of the past. And thirdly, technology plays a significant role in the development of this anxiety.

Which brings us to an astonishing essay: What Happened to FOMO? by Freya India. In this essay, India argues that adults have their interpretations of children all wrong. Young people, she states, aren’t sitting at home, glued to their devices, beset by sadness that their lives are not the same as those influencers they follow, or as exciting as their friend’s feed, or disappointment that parties are happening without them.

Instead, they are paralysed by Fear of Taking Part. Perhaps because of the impact of COVID19; perhaps a consequence of living more of life online; perhaps because of the ease with which actions are able to be undertaken using apps, young people, according to India, are genuinely terrified by the real world.

Why does this matter?

Remember Haidt’s points that adults don’t understand the challenges that are in front of young people? Well, the anxiety that young people face around engaging with the real world are proving difficult for adults to comprehend; these anxieties are either dismissed summarily or, as India tells us, FOTP is usually confused for FOMO.

Young people are enticed by interactions with bots and AI, where the consequences of saying something stupid or of making a mistake are minimised. They are drawn in to a world where they can share their thoughts via reels, which can be practiced and perfected over and over so, whilst they seem ‘live,’ they are deeply rehearsed. Let’s face it, if your interactions with the outside world were all deeply scripted, your appearance tested, checked and re-tested, and, crucially, you never had to listen to any responses to your speaking, it would be scary to then have to speak in real time, in the real world.

Now all of this is important because, until now, a lot of anxiety amongst young people has been treated as though it was FOMO: a lot of the intervention techniques have centred on teaching young people things like gratitude, of the dangers of comparison and of other effective mindfulness techniques. These approaches are great and have real value: however, there is a risk that they are actually treating the wrong ailment.

Which brings us back, of course, to oracy. Even in the last decade, where explicit instruction and the commodification of educational outcomes have taken over schools across the world, the amount that young people speak and interact has deteriorated. This must change.

Schools and classrooms are essential spaces for young people to practice interacting with one another, to learn the art of live dialogue, to learn how to think and speak in real time, to listen to follow-up points and to assimilate those to develop and deepen understanding.

Talk really can change the world.