Ben’s Reviews > Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men > Status Update

Like the boys described here, when young, I struggled with videogame & porn addictions; depression; a sudden & total lack of interest in school (despite a merit scholarship) & university; a complete lack of ambition; & disinterest in real, partnered sex. I thought I was a loser, until I learned I was one of the first causalities of something global. I've overcome it all, but millions won't. It's real & catastrophic.

I've already recommended this to a friend who's the mother of 2 newborn boys; to my teacher partner, to help her understand the boys she teaches, whom, she agrees with author, are developmentally delayed compared to same-age girls, even in late adolescence; & to my uncle, whose son is abandoning school for videogames. It's reassuring & shocking to see myself in this. When younger, I was a stereotypical lost boy.

The most shocking book I've read in a long time. The author has written previously about problems unique to women & girls, & his arguments here don't diminish the plight of females. But it does seem that, recently, young men have suffered the pointiest end of the stick. Reading about the gendered effects of endocrine disruptors was scary. They make girls more girly & boys less like either sex: apathetic, drug-addled.

More profundity. Uses the will to power to explain male competitive drive & how this is hijacked by video games. Literally all obsessive gamers I've met were male. It's an addiction like any other & has serious attainment & socialising effects. ADHD medication works the same on normal & diagnosed people. Boys are diagnosed far more often than girls, & far more often than they were decades ago. Pathologising normalcy.

The effects of this early disdain for school can last a lifetime. Simply holding boys back from school for 1 year dramatically improves lifetime school achievement, because they started when their brains were developmentally ready. Another sex difference responsible for superior female achievement over the past 3 decades is male disdain for authority. They don't try to please, don't work as hard, & don't succeed.