Generation Z is shunning sex for digital relationships. Don’t say you wouldn’t have done the same

Who was having sex in the 1980s? I spent the decade trussed up in a lycra jumpsuit. Although there was a handy front-loading zip, I was getting my kicks hurtling out of helicopters. But think of that decade of sexy dance music, “Sexual Healing” and “I Want Your Sex”, that was pretty much the mantra for a hot teenage crowd.

So I was interested yesterday to read an article headlined No sex please, we’re Generation Z. It seems UK teens today are less likely to have sex underage than their predecessors. Only a fifth of boys and a third of girls are sexually experienced at 14 – or even want to be.

Parents must be sighing with relief. I remember the experience of being sent off to the family planning centre with my boyfriend. I was 15, he was 17, which seems very louche nowadays. I didn’t even want to have sex so young, but it was just the pressure girls were under – especially with a steady boyfriend in tow, feeling insecure that he might chuck you if you didn’t perform. Parents today are more likely to be marching their teenage offspring off to their therapist.

I find this current lack of sex exciting as it is definitely giving power back to girls. Let them take control as social media squeezes out this teenage window of experimentation. Add to this the trend for young people not to drink or smoke or stay out late and you end up with your teenager in their bedroom talking to friends online, playing Fortnite and finding kittens to take photos of. I’d have loved this. It buys time for vulnerable teenagers.

Human interaction is becoming exhausting. I find myself deliberately shutting down opportunities to make eye contact and speak to anyone. We choose the supermarket self-service checkout, we favour quick lazy clicks on Amazon over a discussion about bra sizes with a real human being inside the John Lewis changing rooms. The great “Netflix and chill” mantra used to mean a cosy evening in having some crispy kale and sex; now it means Netflix and, well, chill. Back in the 1980s, our equivalent was sex or The Two Ronnies. It was a no brainer.

Everything is contactless now and sex has followed suit. You can always ping off a quick “dick pic” for a bit of instant gratification, which means you don’t even have to put on a coat, make yourself look Instagram beautiful, actually make eye contact with anyone or risk a fumble in the pub car park which might end up with the wrong photo being flashed into your future employer’s inbox.

Has sex just become too messy to be bothered with?

My funniest moment this week was in a meeting with a 30-year-old when her phone on the table flashed up “Use a condom”. I was stunned. Did her phone think I was a sexual predator? No: it turns out she was monitoring her ovulation dates using the Natural Cycle app. Two days ago it had flashed up “You’re nearing your ovulation”, causing utter confusion at the petrol pump till. But how thrilling that an app is telling you how and when to have sex, rather than a persistent boyfriend.

My first Challenge Anneka clipboard moment was aged 15, crowd-funding among the lower fifth to pay for a friend’s private abortion. Sex seemed thrilling and dangerous. Contraception was often as unreliable as Russian roulette. If our teenage selves had the technology for period tracker apps, perhaps we too would have behaved differently in (or, more often, out of) the bedroom.

Where is this technology going? According to one study reported by the Washington Post this week, young people are developing hornlike spikes at the back of their skulls, bone spurs caused by the forward title of the head as they endlessly check likes and swipe right. So now smartphones are not only changing the way we behave, they’re changing the human form. We now also have “text neck” and “texting thumb”.

It’s official. Teenagers are getting the horn – but the wrong sort.