Teenage years have always been formative – but in 2025, they’re increasingly shaped by algorithms, influencers and unfiltered access to harmful online content.
For Men’s Mental Health Awareness Week, the JEP set out to understand how this digital environment is affecting young men in Jersey: what they’re seeing, how it makes them feel, and what support they need as they navigate the pressures of ‘becoming a man’.
To explore that, five sixth-formers from Jersey agreed to speak openly — and anonymously — about their experiences.
From toxic gym culture and online extremism to mental health, masculinity, and the quiet hope that things are finally starting to shift, these are their raw, honest reflections on what it’s like to be a teenage boy growing up in Jersey during the digital age…
Expectations of ‘masculinity’
Being a teenage boy in 2025, the students said, comes with growing pressure to look muscular or “ripped”, stay quiet about your feelings, and appear wealthy and in control – and that most of that pressure is coming from online.
“Lots of social media really plays on the insecurities of young men,” one student said. “There will be people who you’ll see on social media who will always be doing things better than you.”
The students said gym culture – a strong focus on working out, gaining muscle, and following fitness influencers – has increased massively since Covid and become wrapped up with ideas about status and identity.
“Social media makes you want to have the perfect body… Gym culture and gym influencing are huge in our age group.”
“I’d say a majority of people in our year go to the gym regularly and follow people on Instagram, lots of whom will perpetuate ideas of repressing your emotions,” added another.
The motivation behind it, one student explained, often begins with the belief that gaining muscle makes boys more attractive – a belief they said was passed between boys more than it came from girls.
“I think that attracting women is a huge part of why gym culture has become big, because men are told by other men that women want a bodybuilder, which, from what I’ve seen and from what my female friends have told me, is not what they want.”
Wealth, they said, is another trait that’s widely portrayed as masculine on social media.
“A big part of masculinity that gets shown online is the cars and the checks and wealth that gets flaunted around,” one said. “It shoehorns you into thinking that to be masculine and to be a good man is to be wealthy or rich.”
And then there’s the expectation to hide feelings.
“There’s definitely a stereotype with boys of our age that we probably repress our emotions a lot and don’t talk about our feelings enough with our friends,” said one student.
Others said this depends on the friendship group, but that for more “popular” boys, the stigma can be even greater.
“The further up you go in that hierarchy, the more difficult it becomes to share your feelings… It’s still got that stigma of being seen as a weakness.”
They linked some of that to the images of men they grew up seeing in film and TV.
“There is a stereotype in the media where the main character will be a man who has sex with loads of women and who doesn’t talk about his feelings.”
Online content
The boys said the internet, especially platforms like Instagram and TikTok, is full of content they didn’t ask to see.
“A lot of people our age have seen people being executed, being killed in car crashes, on Instagram, on TikTok,” one said. “It’s a shockingly common thing.”
Social media platforms, they all agreed, aren’t doing enough to protect them.
“I’ve reported things, and you look the next day, and [the videos are] still up,” one pupil said.
They also all felt that these companies are unlikely to act unless they’re forced to.
“Social media companies absolutely should be doing more,” one student said. “But I doubt that they will for a long time, because it brings the money.”
“The only thing that will make them change is government regulation,” added another.
Some said the comments on these videos are just as disturbing – if not worse – than the material posted.
“If you click on the comments of basically any Instagram reel, you see things that are highly violent, highly sexual… It’s always really shocked me.”
Pornography, too, comes up a lot – and often by accident.
“The first stage that boys stumble across porn is 11,” one said. “The first time boys tend to seek it out is at 14.”
They believe education and open conversations are the only way to challenge harmful narratives about sex and relationships.
“You catch and filter out all the negative sentiment that’s going to get drawn from consumption of porn by dealing with it [at school].”
They said they also see “quite a lot” of political content when they open up their phones, but not from balanced or mainstream sources.
They said much of it comes from far-right influencers, many of them men, using short-form videos to push extreme ideas in ways that are designed to capture attention.
“Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Steven Crowder, Joe Rogan, and Matt Walsh are so much more famous [than left-wing creators]… The right wing has dominated social media.”
“All of those people are men,” another student chimed in. “We should be listening to people who aren’t just men about politics.”
They explained that because these creators show off their wealth and confidence, some viewers start to associate those traits with their politics.
They said this can lead to people adopting beliefs they haven’t properly thought through
“Right-wing creators are able to show that they are very rich, have really nice houses, and really nice cars….You automatically make this connection, by wanting to be that person, you would also want to have their political views.”
Some said figures like Nigel Farage, who they pointed out has more TikTok followers than every other MP combined, gain influence because they come across as entertaining.
“I’ve heard from multiple people that they think that Nigel Farage is funny… they’re like, ‘Oh, he’s funny so I’m gonna support his views.’”
The algorithms, they said, make everything worse.
“Even if you’re recommended one of these videos and you watch it all the way through, Instagram or TikTok will then show you more and more,” one student explained.
Many of the videos, they said, are edited in a way that presents a one-sided argument without any nuance.
[Right-wing influencers] turn [a debate] into a short clip… ‘Destroying this woke liberal’… it completely takes away the voice of the other side,” added another.
“It is a lot easier for these figures to upload a video of them doing a ‘gotcha moment’ without showing the context.”
Breaking down stereotypes
Despite the pressure they described, the boys said they believe things are starting to change.
They spoke about the importance of breaking down stereotypes and being more honest about what masculinity really means.
“I’ve felt almost guilty about being a man,” one student said. “I wouldn’t say I’d feel that anymore, thanks to positive masculinity.”
They said that terms like “toxic masculinity” are useful, but only when used carefully to describe specific harmful behaviours. When overused or applied incorrectly, they warned, it can turn boys away from the conversation entirely.
Instead, they want to promote what they called “positive masculinity” – one that encourages openness, vulnerability, and emotional honesty. For them, good role models play a big part in that shift.
They pointed to figures like presenter Jamie Laing, who they admired for showing emotion in public, and football manager Gareth Southgate, who they said spoke about role models and the pressures young men face.
One also mentioned author and broadcaster Stephen Fry, whom they looked up to for being “kind” and “clever.”
“What gives me hope is positive male role models who openly endorse discussion about things like mental health,” one student added.
Mental health
When it comes to mental health, they said more support is still needed, especially in Jersey. But they also recognised that awareness is growing.
“There’s a lot more awareness about men’s mental health… and I think that’s really valuable.”
“You have to acknowledge that the biggest killer of men under 25 is suicide,” another added.
They also want to see young men engaging with a broader range of people, especially women, to build a more rounded view of the world.
“Lots of boys [who are sexist] do not have close female friends,” one noted.
Despite their awareness of the many barriers that still exist for their generation, the group nonetheless said they had feelings of hope for the future.
“I think the best thing,” one student said, “is that we’re here having a conversation about it.”
What the data says
Findings from the 2024 Children and Young People’s Survey, which questioned students in Years 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, revealed:
- 42% of boys said they spent more than five hours online the day before the survey – up from 36% in 2021.
- 15% of boys named online pornography as a main source of information about sex – nearly eight times higher than the proportion of girls (2%).
- 81% of boys in secondary school said they had medium-high or high self-esteem – falling from 84% in 2021 – the first time that boys’ self-esteem dropped more sharply than girls’.
- 15% of boys said they feel pressured to look a certain way on social media
The conversation with the young people was recorded for a Bailiwick Podcasts episode – you can listen to it in full here.
