When Sarah came to see me in my mental-health clinic, her story was all too familiar. I’ve come across more and more parents like her in recent months who fear they’re losing their teenage children to their online worlds. Sarah’s three sons, aged 17, 15 and 14, were on their devices constantly. She felt isolated and disconnected from them, with no idea what they were actually doing online. She found out by accident when her computer, which she shared with her youngest son Josh, had a virus. While the consultant was fixing it, he found uploaded mobile-phone photos of girls doing things – none of which would grace a family newspaper. Randomised video sex chat, naked selfies, hook-up sites and old-fashioned pornography mingled in a soup of out-of-control teenage hormones.
Where did my son go?
Sarah had noticed Josh had seemed less engaged with family life recently, he’d become surly and was falling behind in his schoolwork, but she had put this down to the dark tunnel of adolescence. Having discovered the mass of digital evidence, she confronted him. He said he’d learned about it from his elder brothers. They laughed it off as harmless – everyone was at it. But the effect it was having on her youngest was clearly not okay.
He was showing symptoms of addiction to his phone and withdrawal from the world. He was discovering girls, dating and sex – nothing abnormal about that – but because it was all happening online, it was affecting his nervous system in ways we are only just beginning to understand.
Teenagers date differently now. For my generation (I am 44), the first hurdle we had to overcome was getting to whatever party it was where there might be some action. Now the only vehicle that matters is the smartphone. This is where boys meet girls, girls compete for their attention, and they all try to manage the boiling riot of their own pubescent hormones.
This ancient dance used to be regulated by society. Gone are the days of chaperones, or even the social mores that kept young people’s behaviour in check. Nothing is observed by the community any longer, so the ancient notion of shame as a basic regulator of behaviour has gone. In the old days you would have got a few relationship skills under your belt before you got anywhere near taking it off. These days, the internet, the smartphone, messaging and Skype have turned that millennia-old dynamic on its head.
Sex was supposed to be the last domino to fall after a long social ritual, not the way to say hello.
Explicit danger
Boys and girls now meet, date, flirt and even have sex online. In a study by South West Grid for Learning and Plymouth University, 38% of 13-to-18-year-olds said they had received a sexually explicit message and 39% admitted sharing intimate images. Nearly half did not see anything wrong with sending topless images and 56% said they didn’t know whether their images and videos were distributed further than the intended recipient.
As a recent case in the UK showed, where the police cautioned a schoolgirl who sent an explicit selfie to her boyfriend, many teens don’t realise they risk ending up on the sex offenders’ register for distributing indecent images of a child – even if they are the child in question (the girl’s boyfriend, who forwarded it on after a row, was also cautioned).
Viewing and sharing sexual content is becoming the norm – as is hiding it from parents. The acronyms NIFOC (naked in front of computer), GNOC (get naked on camera), NP4NP (naked pic for naked pic) and POS (parent over shoulder) need no explanation to anyone in their teens or 20s, but may well be a shock to their parents.
The animal brain
Sex now predates relationships – and the prognosis for our kids’ brains is worrying. Boys in particular are vulnerable, as they’re generally more motivated by sex than girls (who tend to be more relationship-focused) and therefore more attracted to sexting.
Our brains have evolved to give us the best chance of healthy relationships when we spend time face to face. We are able to read signals from the other person’s facial expressions, specifically from the area around the cheeks and eyes. This sends a message to our brain that we are safe in this social space. Hearing the other person’s voice has a similar calming effect on the brain, when nerves in the inner ear are triggered by particular frequencies (notably the frequency most similar to a mother’s voice, which is usually the first safe relation-ship we encounter).
Receiving these positive visual and auditory signals makes us connected, compassionate and cooperative. Our brain’s ‘social-engagement system’ is triggered. This gives a softness and warmth to our eyes and cheeks, making us expressive. It slows down the heart, relaxes us and gives us a warm, fuzzy feeling. Our nervous system is then primed in a healthy way to handle any possible sexual activity to come.
The old-fashioned way of getting a date, by making eye contact and small talk at a party, activates all of these evolutionary signals. Modern sexting uses none of these cues. Our social engagement system doesn’t kick in, leaving room for our more primitive ‘mammal brain’ to take charge. This makes us competitive, ruthless, disinhibited; in short, animalistic in the pursuit of our biological needs.
It’s no surprise sexting has turned nasty with the current trend for revenge porn – distribution of sexually explicit images of a person with the intent to humiliate. Nine states in the US have passed laws to prohibit the posting of such images, and a new law banning revenge porn has recently been passed in England and Wales. In New Zealand, police say they have had to hire more staff to deal with the growing phenomenon of cyber crimes such as revenge porn – and the Harmful Digital Communications bill, which aims to limit posting of damaging material – is currently before Parliament.
It’s not too late
Sexting also sets up a barrier to the later stages of a monogamous relationship, where two people are on the same side, rather than in competition.
Josh found it impossible to imagine staying connected to just one girlfriend; the idea seemed ‘boring’ relative to the adrenalin carnival of his induction into sexual life.
If the only model teens have of making a sexual connection is through a computer, then the brain has a lot of recalibrating to do in order to find a loving, committed and real relationship, which feels safe, nourishing and secure.
Fortunately, the brain remains highly plastic in early adult years and with some remedial attention it’s possible to reboot the human response to social connection and put the mammal brain back in its place.
I helped Sarah to reconnect with Josh using some simple strategies (see below) to activate his biologically wired social engagement system. Up until then, Sarah’s attempts simply to bar all her sons from using technology either resulted in failure or heated argument. By understanding the problem from a neurobiological perspective, she was able to shift her strategies and as a result her son’s behaviour changed radically. Quite quickly, Josh was able to recover some social engagement and begin to see that the security of a loving face-to-face relationship made him feel safer than anything he could find online.
To find out more on cyber safety, check out netsafe.org.nz
How to get your teen to reconnect with the real world
.jpg?resize=1024%2C853)
Sex now predates relationships – and the prognosis for our kids’ brains is worrying. Boys in particular are vulnerable.
At home…
Have a digital detox period once a day (ideally an hour, but even just 10 minutes). Put your phones away, turn off the wifi, unplug the television.
Let rest be rest. Make their bedroom a place of emotional safety, not one of possible threat, where the adrenalin-spiking internet could invade at any point. Laptops and phones should not be on and connected in the run-up to sleep.
Try to schedule a five to 10-minute one-on-one conversation daily with each child. Sit face to face and give them the opportunity to connect with you. Ignore every interruption. Never break off your conversation to talk to another child, answer a phone or read an email.
When they feel connected through conversation, hug your children (ask them first). Let them know what it is like to feel another human being’s body close to them while their nervous system is in a state of rest.
Let your child know what it is you appreciate about your own partner. It is easy to be negative, but they need a template of positive connection that does not revolve around sexual exploitation.
And out…
Get into a ‘ping-free’ zone. Go out for a casual meal with your teenager and agree to leave all electronic devices at home. The anxiety of a missed message will soon fade. This will allow for unbroken face-to-face human contact.
Hold eye contact. With younger children, get down to their level so they can comfortably look at your face. Reading your facial expressions helps to stimulate their ventral vagal nerve, which runs down the front of the body to the heart and chest and calms the nervous system, triggering the brain’s social-engagement system.
In a restaurant or public place, let them sit in the corner with no people behind them. This reduces the nervous system’s perception of threat triggered in their primal mammal brain (it works in classrooms too) and will help them to connect, listen, think and relate.
Reduce any background music/noise, particularly anything with heavy bass, when talking to your teen.
The frequences of a woman’s voice are most connected to triggering social engagement, and without background noise will provide stronger stimulus. The same principle will work for fathers, too, only less strongly.
Listen to your teen, don’t just talk at them. Also try not to rush their conversation – the more they talk, the longer their exhalations are. Longer out-breaths (compared with in-breaths) will trigger their ventral vagal nerve, calming them down and stimulating their social-engagement system.
Words by: Benjamin Fry
Photographs by: Jennifer Livingstone / Getty Images
