Join a gang, any gang

Interesting piece of survey research from the University of Sheffield on the newsfeed over the weekend which suggests that young men 19-24 are particularly prone to breaking the lockdown social distancing rules.

Fully half of the young men on the sample claimed to have done so to meet friends, twice as many as their female peers. Of these, one fifth had some sort of interaction with the authorities – being ask to disperse etc.

While the survey itself adds some useful colour to what we know about the mental health of our youth, this nugget – the non-compliance of young men is striking.

Strikingly familiar to anyone who’s gone through male adolescence, for one. “Independent” and “cool” are the epithets that are applied by these youngsters to those running off to meet their mates in defiance of authority.

Strikingly familiar also to those who’ve observed many of our closest cousins: in chimp and gorilla groups, young males are particularly vulnerable to bullying and violence as they propose a threat to those higher up the food chain.

So what do they do?

What any teenage boy would do: seek out the safety of a crowd of their peers. It’s what that rock n roll spirit is based on.

But it’s also ever so human. It’s what we all do in difficult times.

Just read the facebook and twitter threads.

As the late Kurt Vonnegut put it:

Join a gang, any gang