Social media: the perfect no-contact, teen contraceptive

What’s the best form of contraception? At school we were taught that it was the pill plus a condom plus spermicide, plus just saying no. But times change; now, it seems, the best form of contraception is adding the object of your desire on Snapchat.

New figures show that the rate of teenage pregnancies in the UK has fallen by 45 per cent since 2007 and now stands at the lowest level since records began almost 50 years ago. What was happening in 2007? Facebook had just left American campuses and was starting to go global. In the years between then and now, social networks have become integral to the teenage experience. In a terrifying sort of way. Now, instead of spending Friday nights in the park sharing a four-pack of White Lightning, getting tipsy and then perhaps pregnant, the youths of today are sitting at home perfecting their selfie pout, thumbing through filters and flirting on Snapchat, at a distance even the toughest sperm could not swim across.

We’ve been led to believe that technology is to blame for sexualising young people, allowing them to send pictures of their private parts with a swish of the thumb and even less thought. The flipside is that they’re so busy getting the overhead lighting on their titpics just so that they have no time to talk to a member of the opposite sex face to face, let alone risk being impregnated by them. They’re sexualised, but virtually. And while there’s no risk of ending up a parent purely by scrolling through Instagram, a life lived through a screen comes with its own problems.

Teenagers have always revelled in isolation. Being locked into one’s iPhone is not a million miles from previous generations who spent their free time watching television, listening to Rage Against the Machine in their bedrooms or chatting on MSN Messenger. Certainly the drop in drinking among young adults – the ONS also reports that 16 to 24-year olds are less likely to have drunk alcohol in the week previous to survey than older groups; fewer than half compared with 66 per cent of 45 to 64-year-olds – is significant. And the drop in pregnancies can also be ascribed to better education, wider access to contraception – regular and emergency – and changed aspirations for young women. The average age for women having their first baby is now over 30.

While the massive drop in teenage pregnancies is to be celebrated, there is more to be done. England continues to trail the rest of western Europe on this. There are inequalities across the UK – the north-east recorded a 46.5 per cent drop in teen pregnancies, London 57.9 per cent. The number of abortions has increased, with the highest rate in girls under 16. Meanwhile, the £200m cut to the public health budget will hit sexual health services and Education Secretary continues to reject calls to make sex education compulsory in schools. If precautions aren’t taken, that rate could climb up again as fast as it fell.

Bring back Miss Trunchbull – that’s the message from Ofsted’s chief inspector. Scruffy pupils, scrappy worksheets, noisy corridors and bad behaviour are putting off bright, young graduates from teaching, Sir Michael Wilshaw said this week.

“We need headteachers in our secondary schools that are going to be transformative leaders and we have not got enough. We need battlers, we need bruisers, we need battle-axes who... are absolutely determined to get high standards. We have got too many appeasers in our secondary schools.”

It is not pupils’ attire, but the workload and overwhelming paperwork that put new teachers off before they reach their first half term. As for “battle-axe”, it is alienating, harking back to a ‘three Rs, jolly hockey sticks’ twee Great British idea of schooling where pupils were seen and not heard unless reciting amo, amas, amat. There’s a middle ground between a soft touch and a battle-axe, and anyone who has been to school knows the best teachers inhabit it.

“Super inspired by my visit to Ikea today”, said nobody ever. Until this week, when Kanye West shared his love for the Swedish store. “Really amazing company… my mind is racing with the possibilities,” he added. In fairness, he was tweeting from the company’s HQ in Almhult, which must be an interesting space for any self-styled visionary. And even if this is the precursor to the rapper announcing a new range of YEEZY sheepskin rugs, I still love the idea of a millionaire artist discovering Ikea and finding it “inspiring”, while the rest of us find it “cheap” and “exhausting”.

Next week, Kanye visits Lidl and finds enlightenment among the gardening gear and German cakes. In the meantime, we can all look forward to his next album – Malm and the Tealights.