MAN, INTERRUPTED – Why Young Men Are Struggling and What Can We Do About It
by Philip Zimbardo
About The Book
Philip Zimbardo, the author of this book, Why Young Men Are Struggling, noticed a shocking trend. He saw that young boys were performing worse and worse in every area of life, more and more young boys were dropping out of school, losing their jobs. In addition, young boys were addicted to video games and porn. They were also failing to build good relationships and had no motivation to achieve anything. What was the reason behind these problems? Why are young boys struggling and how can we help them? Let’s find out in this summary!
Who can read this Book
• Parents
• Teachers
• Young Boys
About the Author
Philip Zimbardo is an author, psychologist, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is known for doing a Controversial Stanford Prison Experiment. Philip is also the author of ‘The Lucifer Effect’ and ‘Man, Interrupted’. He is also the founder and director of the ‘Heroic Imagination Project’. This organization promotes heroism in everyday life.
Introduction
Today women all over the world are in a better position than ever before. They are getting all the rights which were never given to them before. She is doing well in the field of education. Every year they are getting better and better jobs. Apart from these, women’s movement supports and encourages them.
But what about men? They are doing the exact opposite to women. Men are lagging behind in studies. They are failing in love and facing difficulties in maintaining relationships. Men are only filling in jails and gangs. No special movements are run to guide the men.
You will learn 3 things from this summary. You will learn about the problems that today’s young boys are facing. You will learn the reasons behind those problems and, finally, you will learn about the possible solutions to those problems.
The new generation of men ie boys are in trouble. They are failing in every aspect of life at an alarming rate. If no action is taken immediately to solve this, then the destruction of our society is almost certain.
If you are a gamer, porn addict, father or a young boy, then this summary is for you.
Disenchantment with Education
Perhaps this is happening for the first time that today young boys are less educated than their fathers. Girls are ahead of boys at every level of education. Today boys are failing and repeating the same class again. Suspended from school are also often boys.
When a student achieves a high standard in any one skill, then only he is considered skilled. In America, 41% of girls are proficient in writing and 34% of girls are proficient in reading by the age of 14. But, at the same time only 25% of the boys are able to read and write by the age of 14 years.
Almost twice as many boys as girls believe that going to school is just a waste of time. Because of this, most of the boys leave the school in between. It has been observed that often school dropouts suffer from poor health, their income is also less and their chances of going to jail are also high.
The difference seen in education between boys and girls is visible even after school. In the US, 62% of girls complete a master’s degree. In Canada and Australia, 60% of university graduates are girls. In England, girls apply to university 33% more often than boys.
The reason for the failure of boys in schools is also the falling of education standard. Also, the quality of teachers is also getting worse year by year. Teaching is a career in which both salary and status are low, so most of the talented graduates do not become teachers.
Teachers ask children to just cram and memorize their syllabus. There is a dearth of creative activity and problem solving activity tasks in schools. Now doing boring homework has increased and break time has been reduced. Many schools no longer have gym or physical education classes.
This new method of education is harming more boys than girls. The brain of girls develops differently in comparison to boys. Younger boys, especially those below 5 years of age, are more physically active in comparison to girls and are less mature than girls.
In Kindergarten, the focus is especially on the language skills of children. In elementary schools, 80% of lessons are language-based. Such classes are fine for girls but the brain of boys is not ready to learn to read. When they are forced to learn language skills, they start hating studies.
The second thing that harms these boys is that there are very few male teachers. Studies have shown that female teachers misbehave with boys. It was found that when the names of the students were removed from the test papers, the marks of the boys increased by 33%.
When same gender teachers teach, both boys and girls learn more. In English and science, having a female teacher improves girls’ scores by 4% but reduces boys’ test scores by 4%. This means that due to female teacher, girls perform 8% better in comparison to boys. Just imagine the difference this thing would make in the journey of a child’s 13 years of education.
Men Opting Out of the Workforce
Around the world, more and more women are starting their professional careers. On the other hand, it seems that men are doing the opposite. After 1960, the number of men in the workforce has decreased. This means that lakhs of men in the age group of 25 to 54 are unemployed.
One reason behind this is the lack of jobs in some sectors. From time to time, economic recession i.e. recession keeps coming in the world. The financial crisis of 2009 was the worst phase after World War 2. During the financial crisis, a lot of jobs are lost in the construction and manufacturing sectors. Usually men work in these sectors and once a job is lost, it is difficult to get it back.
On the other hand, sectors like healthcare and personal care are very secure. Even in times of financial crisis, people do not lose their jobs in these sectors. Usually women get work in these sectors. For this reason, most women are nurses and home health workers.
But, the lack of “men’s jobs” is not the only reason for this problem. Young men are also the reason behind this. They believe that they are men so they do not have to do anything.
Most of these men do not want to work at all. Half of the men believe that there are no jobs of their worth. They feel that that much salary is not enough for them. Apart from these, they believe that it is not their responsibility to earn for themselves.
Such men usually stay with their parents for maximum time. Otherwise, they find themselves a rich partner who can support them. This mentality of theirs also creates problems because they do not help even in household chores.
Excessive Gaming
In the 1960s, very few people had computers or TVs. Whereas nowadays, an average American spends about 60 hours on a digital device in a week. It has been seen a lot in young people, especially in young boys.
Video games are becoming a big problem. An average young boy spends 10,000 hours gaming before the age of 21. While it takes only 4,800 hours of hard work to complete the graduation degree.
Well there are some gamer girls too. But almost all addicts are young boys. Girls play video games on average 5 hours every week. On the other hand, boys play video games for 13 hours. So the figure of 10,000 hours mentioned above is probably closer to 14,400 hours for young boys.
Boys and girls play different types of games. Girls play short, non-violent games on their smartphones and tablets. Boys mostly play violent games on computers and consoles. Such games require more time and dedication.
Video game addiction among young boys has made gaming more competitive. George Yao was the best player in the world of ‘Clash of Clans’ game for 6 consecutive months. He often used to play this game continuously for 48 hours. He used to take the plastic-covered iPad with him to the bathroom to play games even while he was taking a shower.
Teenagers who want to become professional gamers even stop sleeping to improve their gaming skills. The University of California found that young people need at least 9 hours of sleep, but 15-17-year-old boys are only sleeping an average of 7.1 hours per night.
The problem of video games persists even beyond the age of teenage. These days we have online support groups like “Gamer Widow”. Gamer widows are a group of women whose marriages are failing because of their husbands’ video game addiction.
Excessive Porn Use
In 1996, there was a young comic artist named Peter Morley Souter. One day, as he was browsing the internet for inspiration, Peter came across a modified version of his favorite comic, Calvin and Hobbes. In this, Calvin and Hobbes were having sex with Calvin’s mother. After seeing this, Souter ruled the Internet.
It was only six years since the Internet started in 1997, but even then about 900 porn sites had been created in it. In 2013, the Porn Hub site had over 15 billion views. Another popular site XNXX uses more than 70,000 tags for its porn videos. Just googling the word “porn” gives you millions of results.
Porn has become so easily available to people that it is no wonder that more and more people are watching it. Nowadays, one out of three boys is a very heavy porn consumer. Heavy consumer means that someone watches so many porn videos that he cannot even keep a daily count of them. Porn Hub is the 35th most visited website among 6-14 year olds in the UK.
The porn industry especially targets young boys. According to the data received from the porn site, 75% of the porn watchers are male. Statistics of porn sites with paid subscriptions show that 98% of those paying by credit card are registered with a mail name.
It has also been found that boys come in contact with porn for the first time at the age of 15. In America, the average age for a boy to have sex for the first time is 17 years. This means that boys have watched about 1,400 porn videos before having sex for the first time.
Adults know very well the purpose of porn. They know that porn is just a fantasy and should not be copied. But, young boys do not understand this. They think that porn shows sex in the right way, so young boys feel that they should behave like the men shown in porn videos.
Boys start feeling that sex is just a physical act. They ignore the need for romance and emotion. They start treating their girlfriends just like sex objects. Boys expect the same thing from their girlfriends that porn actresses do.
The spread of porn has also affected the romantic relationship. In fact, men no longer want to have romantic relationships. They hook up by finding women on apps like Tinder. He picks up women as if he is ordering food.
Due to these, many problems have increased because sex education is not given properly in the school, so only porn is the support for sex education in front of boys. They do not learn to have safe sex.
Due to the lack of sex education, these problems increase even more. In America, cases of unplanned pregnancy among teenage girls are increasing. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are also on the rise.
Technology Enchantment and Arousal Addiction
Author of the famous book “Lord of the Rings” J. R. R Tolkien. He once said that “magic” is like a different world or a fantasy for people. Tolkien meant the world that is made of books. Some books are such that they completely grab our attention. These books make us feel as if we are living in a different dream world, a fantasy world.
But, today’s young people are not impressed by the magic of books, rather, they are impressed by the magic of technology. For this they have two biggest sources – video games and porn.
Getting impressed with technology is harmful in comparison to the magic of books. Due to being able to read books slowly, its magic rises slowly, today’s youth finds it slow and difficult and there is no reward for reading books like in video games. Books do not give orgasm like porn. The only reward we get for reading a book is understanding its message and knowing the plot.
Many people believe that there are many problems in the life of video game and porn addicts. Such people use it as a way to run away from the bitter reality of their life and hence they get addicted to technology or porn. For example, people believe that children whose parents misbehave with them and are strict, they get used to video games to divert their attention.
This is true in some cases but mostly it is not so. Gabe Deem is a youth counselor overcoming his porn addiction. In his teenage, he became addicted to porn and video games.
But Gabe didn’t have a bad childhood. No one in his family had such addiction. He was never ill-treated in his childhood and had a girl friend during his high school days.
It was as if video games had cast a spell on Gabe because he felt as if he had found a purpose. He wanted to be a competitive and productive person. Usually people start their career and family for this. However, Gabe turned his attention to video games because it was easier to do.
Gabe turned to porn because he enjoyed it. He did not feel the need of porn in his life but he used to get pleasure from watching porn videos which was not found anywhere else. Now the thing to note here is that Gabe did not use it to escape from any sorrow or pain in his life. They were just addicted to the fun that porn and video games were giving them.
Video games and porn get addicted because it arouses people. Arousal is the feeling that we feel in our body and mind. porn gives us sexual feeling and video games inspire us to achieve our goals.
Nowadays, the digital world and the real world are crowded together to arouse us. It is sad that young people are choosing porn and video games for this. This is because both of them are entertaining and are easily found. In the digital world, with fun comes no responsibility.
First of all, let’s talk video games. People who play video games for a long time often suffer from an inferiority complex, that is, they feel that everyone in the outside world is better than them. Generally, such men are neither very fit nor very good looking.
Video games make them feel superior to others. They use their skills to get high rank in these games. These young people go online and harass weak players, so they get used to playing video games because this is the only place where they feel powerful.
Video games do a lot of damage to the social skills of young boys. About 82% players said they mostly play alone and 24% heavy gamers said they never play games with their friends. They also say that they never make friends because according to them the real world is too boring.
Therefore, due to gaming, teenage boys become weak in studies. In one study, students who did not play video games were compared with gamers. It was found that gamers were 34% of those who did less homework. He used to spend 30% less time in studies.
But why are boys so drawn to video games in comparison to girls? A recent brain imaging study has shown that this may be due to the way our brain works. Scientists scanned the brains of both men and women while they were playing the game. In this, it was seen that in the comparison of women, more brain activity was being generated in the brain of men due to these games.
This activity was visible in those parts of the brain that are associated with happiness and excitement. Video games have targets and goals that have to be achieved. Due to these targets and goals, activity arises in the brain of men. The study showed that men play games for more hours than women. Also, it was also found that boys are two to three times more likely to be addicted to gaming than girls.
Let us now talk about the problems caused by porn. People do not get to see anything about lust in mainstream media, so people get pulled towards porn. Lust is linked to what people want and naturally people have lust so when people can’t find it in mainstream media, they look for it online
Young boys, especially during puberty, feel a lot of lust, so they look at easily accessible porn. The biggest problem with porn comes when boys start having such expectations from sex which are not possible to meet in reality.
It is shown in porn that many men can have sex for about an hour at a time. Apart from this, it also shows that women have multiple orgasms in the same video. The men in these videos have athletic and fit bodies.
Boys watching porn start feeling inferior to male porn actors. They become unhappy with their own body. Due to this boys are afraid to find sexual partner. They feel that they will not be able to perform as shown in porn videos.
Watching porn for a long time can spoil people’s sexual relationships. Due to this, the ability to become sexually aroused in men can be taken away, their sexual excitement can decrease.
It starts with men not getting an erection easily and, over time, they lose their ability to get aroused by looking at photos. Re-watching previously watched porn reduces or stops affecting them. The sensitivity starts decreasing in them, due to which they start enjoying less in sex.
These problems are caused by changes in the brain. Watching too much porn affects the level of a hormone called dopamine. This hormone is important for men to get in the mood for sex.
Eventually, this habit changes their brain permanently. They are also unable to produce dopamine properly. With this, having sex with a single partner becomes boring and less arousing for them.
Lost Families, Absent Dads
In ancient times, humans used to live in big houses. Many generations of the family used to live in every house. The children of these houses used to grow up among their grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins. He had healthy relationships with many elders of the house.
But nowadays, children have very less talk and interaction with adults. It is very rare that someone other than the children’s own parents lives in the house. Their relatives live far away from them and on the other hand, a teacher has around 20-30 children in a classroom.
Young children have to depend on their elders to control their stress. When children grow up, then only they are capable of handling stress themselves. Due to lack of interaction with elders, most of the children are dependent on their mother for stress control.
On the other hand, today’s mothers themselves are living under a lot of pressure and stress. This means that she is already unable to handle her stress. This raises the question that how well they would be able to manage the stress of their children.
In 1980, only 18% of mothers in America were not married. Whereas in 2012, the mother of about 41% children was not married. This number was 53% in women under 30 years of age. Most of these women were living with their partners and such relationships can break 2 times more than marriage relationships and very rarely it happens that such relationships can reach the stage of marriage.
But this does not mean that the marriage lasts forever without any problems. Divorce cases are increasing all over the world. In America, 50% of people’s first marriage ends in divorce. On the other hand, there are fewer people who get married in China than those who apply for divorce.
What is the effect of such break up and divorce on children? First of all, children lose their trust in relationships. They see their loving parents as emotionally unstable i.e. broken and they feel that relationships only create more problems.
How one’s father is treated during divorce has a bad effect on boys. Only in 10-15% cases the father of the children gets the custody of their children. They may have to lose their home and their father may be forced to pay money every month to their mother. It has been observed that men who have taken divorce are 10 times more likely to commit suicide in comparison to women who have taken divorce.
Young boys feel that the same will happen to them. They see marriage as a trap which will ruin their life. Because of what happened to their parents, they don’t even want to have their own child.
The more break-ups and divorces happen, the more single mothers bring up young boys. Even those children who have a father in their house, they also do not talk much with their father. A study has shown that boys spend an average of 30 minutes with their fathers in a week. On the other hand, these boys spend 44 hours a week using digital devices.
When boys grow up without their father, their development remains to a limit and then, children start looking for male role models in someone else. Sometimes because of this they join gangs and terrorist organizations.
Children without a father may have problems with attention and mood. A study was done in Sweden on about 1 million children aged 6-9 years. From this, researchers came to know that 54% of children raised by single mothers without fathers have more chances of having ADHD disorder. ADHD is a disorder in which a child has difficulty staying focused and paying attention.
“The Boys to Men Mentoring Network” is an organization that works for boys who do not have or have left their fathers. These organizations give male mentors to such boys. This is done so that a positive male influence can be brought in to fulfill his father’s place in his life. This project showed that good male role models can fulfill the shortcomings left in children growing up without a father. Because of these mentors, these children started performing better in their class. He started mixing with people more and started trusting new people.
As they grow older, especially in their teens, boys need male role models. This is because the mothers of these boys love them very much. For example, they don’t have to face their mother’s anger for not passing in school, so their habits get worse.
But, these boys have to earn their father’s love. Father is a little stricter than mother. For these reasons, boys have to behave well and perform well in school. The role of a mother is very important, but a father is also needed for the proper growth of boys.
What Schools Can Do
The role of a school is to prepare children to become adults, but you must have learned that schools are not doing much about it. There is a need to bring improvement in the education system to save the young boys of the next generation.
For this, schools should bring such teaching skills that take care of the needs of the students. In this, subjects like managing personal finance and facing the interview should be included.
Many schools in Europe have “blended programs” for their students. These are programs that combine traditional education with job experience. Such blended programs teach students to make practical use of the things they learn in school. Apart from this, students who do not learn in school, they can also learn such skills.
There is also one aspect of education which is ignored, which is sex education. Porn spreads a lot of wrong information, but it is very difficult to stop children from watching porn. That’s why giving correct information with the help of education system is its practical solution.
Schools should hire professional health educators for this work. Health educators should tell children about sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Along with this, they should also be explained about subjects like pregnancy and birth control.
Apart from these topics, they should also talk about relationships. The possibility of not getting into the relationship at all or becoming an abusive partner is more in boys. We can teach these children basic things like the need for intimacy, respect and communication in a relationship. Due to this, there will be a reduction in cases like Divorce case and disintegration of the family.
By teaching things like respect and equality, the negative effect of watching porn can be reduced. Kids will learn that sex is not as easy as porn videos and they will not see their partner as just an object for sex.
Schools should also change the attitude of their teachers. Today’s education system is boring. In such an education system, children are not motivated to study and are unable to maintain their focus.
Schools should follow this by taking video games as an example. Technology should be used to make studies more interesting. There are also some schools that use online forums to discuss any topic. They teach children using powerpoint presentation and great graphics. Such schools are more successful in attracting their students towards studies.
Male students benefit a lot from male teachers, so schools should try to hire more and more male teachers. This is the reason why we should think seriously about single sex schools. With this, it will be easier to give education to both boys and girls more properly.
Countries like Brazil, Japan and China have started tests for teachers. These tests measure the qualification of teachers and only qualified teachers are given license to teach in public schools. Similar grading system should be followed all over the world.
Lastly, schools should arrange the test anonymously. It is clear that teachers favor girls in tests. However, some teachers give more marks to weak students to help them. Such students are not motivated to work hard and keep performing poorly.
What Parents Can Do
The most important life skill that parents can teach their young boys is responsibility. With this, children can face the challenges of their life in a better way. It is right to give them small and simple responsibilities in the beginning.
Usually, these responsibilities involve doing something for a large group, such as going to the store to buy things for the family. To teach them to be independent, to teach them to use public transport or to inspire them to play team sports.
Sometimes, children will not be able to fulfill their responsibilities and will fail. So, don’t praise them just for trying. By doing this, they will not be able to trust your feedback. Boys get inspired by real achievements. Praise them only when they are successful so that they can become even better. Point out their shortcomings without being strict and you will see that they make fewer mistakes.
When your son starts going to high school, then you should talk to him about finding a job. Talk to him about career options. Also, tell him about the responsibilities related to the job. Many boys do not succeed because they do not know anything about the job market even after graduation.
Don’t hesitate to talk to your son about sex. You are a parent so you don’t have to be ashamed. But, if you do not educate them on this subject then they can get stuck later in their life. People who have taken sex education, their relationships are better. They are 6 times more likely to have a happy and successful marriage.
It is the responsibility of the fathers, especially of boys, to be as involved as possible in their sons’ lives. If you ignore your son, you should apologize to him. To save the young boys, their father, uncle and grandfather need to come forward. He should guide the young generation so that they become strong and responsible.
Parents can use practical activities to help their sons with time management. Ask them to note down the time they spend doing their different activities. These activities can include anything from playing video games, sports, studying, texting, sleeping, and hanging out with friends. Ask boys to privately monitor their porn use.
You should monitor how they are spending their time. You should control the time spent on his texting and video games. Also, you should also see that they are getting proper sleep.
As a parent, you have the right to limit your child’s use of digital devices. Keep their computer in a common area instead of their room. Instruct them to play within the video game limits. But, do not completely remove them from gadgets. Today’s new generation needs video games and internet so that they stay connected with their friends.
What Men Can Do
If you are a young boy, then you must be aware of the problems discussed in this summary. What can you do about these problems?
You can start it by stopping watching porn. Take time to identify your sexual fantasy. Taking a break from porn can repair the damage caused by porn on the brain. Sometimes, staying away from the internet makes it easier to avoid porn.
Where you spend your time, you can track that time. An average teenage male spends 676 hours playing video games in a year. Spend some of this time learning a real skill, like learning a new language or playing an instrument. It takes 260 hours to learn to play the guitar and 205 hours to learn the basics of a new language.
Playing sport improves the life of men. You don’t need to play professionally. The physical fitness you get by playing games increases your confidence. This increases your focus and discipline also comes in you. Athletic ability will make you popular, especially among ladies.
Include some good things in your habits like making your bed every morning after getting up. This will give you a sense of achievement at the start of your day. By including more good habits in your habits, you will get to see many more small achievements everyday. This will make your mindset good and discipline will come in you, so that you will be able to achieve the biggest goal.
Lastly, try to make some female friends. Many boys fail to talk to girls or understand them. Instead of making a relationship directly with a girl, first try to befriend her.
When you try to befriend a girl, make it clear beforehand that you are not interested in dating her. This will make her more comfortable with you and her trust in you will increase. If finding friends is challenging for you, try setting small goals like smiling at a female cashier at the supermarket or trying to talk to a stranger for a few minutes.
Conclusion
First of all, you learned about the problems of today’s young boys.
They are leaving school midway and are also becoming unemployed. They get addicted to watching porn and playing video games. Also, today very few young boys are coming up to give their contribution in the society.
Second, you learned about the reasons behind these problems.
Due to technology, men have got many ways to amuse themselves. There is a lot of fun in this medium but there is no responsibility, that’s why young boys fall into its affair.
Due to these addictions, the relationships of young boys are also deteriorating. Many of these boys do not even have friends. This damage is not only limited to their relationship but it is also harming their brain.
If young boys grow up in a broken family, it affects them even more. Many of them do not have father or any male mentor in their life. In such a situation, the single mothers are not able to fulfill the needs of the boys. Even the schools are not able to help them.
Third, you learned what can be done to save the youth of the next generation.
Schools should teach young boys in such a way that they develop properly. Schools should hire more and more mail teachers so that they can teach boys. Life skills should also be taught in the school syllabus. porn spreads lies and to avoid this health educators should be hired.
Parents should teach their sons to be responsible. They should teach their sons about the job market at an early age. It is the job of the parents to see that their children use their time properly. They should stop their sons from giving up their sleep and studies for video games and porn. Fathers should be more and more involved in the lives of their sons.
Finally, you learned what you can do as a young man. You can cut down on watching porn. You can also try to spend less time on video games. You can learn new skills in your extra time. One can play a team sport, make friends and put more effort into improving their health, money and relationships.
Today’s youth is in trouble. To solve this problem, there is a need to bring changes in media, government and education system. But the real change starts with you. When you believe in something from inside then you definitely do that thing. Do whatever you can to strengthen and encourage young boys. They can still be saved from this quagmire.