‘My friend is big into porn, but he can’t talk to girls’

MY PAST two Saturday afternoons have been spent chatting with teenagers about just how vulnerable they are to the dangers of the internet.

Both were highly enjoyable encounters where I once again got really embarrassed at how badly teenagers are portrayed in the media: yes they binge drink, yes they look at porn, yes they are having sex. But they are also clever, technologically sophisticated and well-informed individuals who want to have fun.

I walked away from the second encounter, a little bit shocked at the contrast between the two sexes. The 17-year-old girls had a fierce intelligence, sharp analytical skills and it’s obvious that they love to talk to yap: most of the subjects we breached had clearly already been thrashed out by them on phones, Facebook and Twitter. They were strikingly opinionated.