How social media can be terrible for teens and the people fighting back with bans and more
Phone and social media use have led to a youth mental health crisis and transformed teens’ lives but schools and governments are stepping in
By the time her younger son Dan was 16, the online world had already transformed the landscape of the average teenager, both inside and out, Fiona Spargo-Mabbs says.
“It meant Dan and his friends – without me knowing about anything other than the party nearby he’d asked permission to go to – could message one another online to meet, find their way to an illegal rave that had been organised through social media, and on the way there take a drug I’d never heard of, which was easily available by messaging a dealer, and affordable with a bunch of boys’ paper-round and pocket money.”
That specific occasion was the first time Dan had gone to such an event. He died three days later from multiple organ failure caused by taking a dose of MDMA (Ecstasy) that, unknown to him, contained a lethal amount of the drug.
His mother has since founded, and is director of, the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation, a UK-based drug education charity, to help prevent similar tragedies. She retells what she went through in the 2024 book Un:Stuck: Helping Teens and Young Adults Flourish in an Age of Anxiety, by Irish nutritionist and wellness expert Kate O’Brien.
Dan’s story is also retold for secondary school audiences in the play I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die, from playwright Mark Wheeller, to help them make good choices.
Today’s 18-year-olds have only known a world with social media in their pockets.