From doomscrolling to sex: being a boy in 2024

I travelled the UK interviewing teenage boys. I found openness, thoughtfulness, honesty and vulnerability on topics from sex to pornography, feelings and isolationIt was two separate conversations that made me think properly about what life might be like as a boy these days. The first was about a 13-year-old, the son of a friend, who said he had been rounded on for making a small (and, he thought, complimentary) comment about a girl’s haircut.He told his mother that the girl’s friend