Research

One of our key priorities is learning from the children and young people we work with. That’s why in 2020, we conducted interviews with teenagers aged 11-18 years old in Stockport, England.

The purpose of our survey and interviews was to give us access to the thoughts, feelings and opinions of young people in our immediate community. Our survey focused on topics that we have seen become popular in secondary schools in the last five years around the country.

The topics included in the survey were:

• Social media
• The Internet
• The future of our planet
• Self-harm

Our findings have given us valuable insight that we can use to create better, more relevant content to support the mental health of young people across the country and around the world. For this, we thank every young person who took part in the survey and shared their thoughts with us. Your thoughts and words will contribute to helping thousands of people just like you.

Thank you,

The Lily-Jo Project Team

Social Media & The Internet

25% of participants agreed that social media made them feel lonely. But when asked if social media also made them feel connected, over 80% agreed that they did.

Connection for young people can be personal but also can connect them with political movements around the world.

“The Internet has become such a vast space over the last two years. There is much more awareness online and information spreads a lot easier. Something negative, a viral movement or viral moment like George Floyd’s murder, it gets passed around because people want to know and help and raise awareness. That’s how I found out about Black Lives Matter.”

“We are more of a community, a lot more of us understand about mental health. If we see a person who is acting terribly, we’ll call them out. Previous generations don’t seem to do that. We want to stand up and support the victim, even if that means ganging up on the offender.”

Whilst this community mindset can be supportive and vindicating, ‘call out culture’ can also produce anxiety. Half of all participants said that they find social media stressful and 44% of participants find social media anxious.

Only 13% of young people ‘strongly agree’ with the statement that they find social media relaxing.

In interviews, one young person expressed how social media and online communication stopped being a relaxing form of self-expression during the pandemic:

“I tried to FaceTime my friends a lot during the pandemic and when we first got sent home, we were excited not to be at school, we were still chatting and joking and sharing our mental health problems, but within a week, that had all changed. Everyone started to get quiet and withdrawn. All of the communication felt awkward whereas before, it was easy.”

The Future of Our Planet

60% of participants feel anxious about the future of the planet.

“It’s a political issue and we care about politics because we understand what it is. We understand how it can affect people. If it can affect them negatively, then we want to fight to see if it can be corrected.”

One in ten young people said they feel anxious about climate change every day. 

“I definitely worry about climate change more than the generations above us. We’re taught about it in geography at school from primary school age, so we understand the facts and what’s actually happening. We know that climate change is leading to a crisis. It makes me very anxious. I see it constantly. Even with the weather changing drastically in the UK, I know that’s climate change. It scares me. I definitely feel threatened by it. I know it will be a life-or-death issue in my lifetime.”

Self-Harm

36.6% of participants admit that they have had the urge to hurt themselves with one in ten participants saying they have the urge to hurt themselves nearly every day.

In speaking with participants, we found that many young people were struggling with mental health in the pandemic.

“A lot of people I know had a drastic mental health downturn in the pandemic because of the lack of human interaction. Our space where we can make jokes and interact together and share our mental health concerns was gone. That was really hard and made us feel alone.”

Anxiety, School, and the Pandemic

We also had many students give feedback about anxiety coming from school, especially in the pandemic.

“Most of my friends’ biggest worries come from school. We all have a lot of stress and anxiety about . . . the future. We are all worried about the grades we will get and what people will think.”

“We were basically told throughout the year that if we didn’t do well doing online work and online school, we wouldn’t get good grades and we would fail. It was fearmongering. There was so much pressure to perform. We were told our mock exams were it, that our grades would be totally based on them. It was so anxiety-inducing.”

“There was an air of mystery, nobody knew what could happen. It was a lot of hypothetical situations that made us feel really stressed and confused. The lack of clear communication didn’t help at all.”

About the Survey

All participants were from Stockport-based schools and between the ages of 11-18 years old. There were 121 respondees and all of the quotes were from interviews with students of these ages. Quotes are anonymized for student protection.