environmental influence

It’s reassuring to have a villain.

At the moment, one of the big ones is social media (which I have written about specifically in a separate post). There are plenty of others: sugar, fossil fuel companies, the education system, fast food, video games.

The pattern is familiar. We identify an external force, blame it for our problems, and demand someone regulate it.  Surely now things will improve.

Except they rarely do, because we tend to look in the wrong direction.

I recognise this pattern because I fall into it myself – I do love to equip myself with a good oversimplification.

The social media ban as a microcosm

The UK is considering following Australia in banning social media for under-16s.  Many parents feel relieved, and politicians look like they’re “doing something” about youth mental health.

But the story underneath it sounds like: “Social media does this to us.”

Rather than: “We’re making choices that are harming us.”

The phone becomes the agent. I become the passive recipient.

That framing is backwards.

The bits we often skip over

A few things can be true at the same time: social media companies do design highly compelling products… those products do exploit psychological vulnerabilities… and teenagers do struggle with self-regulation.  All true.

But there are also some truths we tend to leave out.  Many of us haven’t developed much tolerance for boredom or discomfort, so we often reach for distraction automatically.  We might inadvertently seek to fill every spare moment with something.  When it comes to phones, we are modelling our own phone habits constantly, whether we intend to or not.

None of this makes us bad people. It makes us human, living in a particular environment.  But if we refuse to acknowledge our side of the equation, banning platforms starts to look like wishful thinking.

Why external blame is so appealing

The “ban it” approach is attractive because it feels clean and decisive.  It also relieves us from looking at our own habits.  If the problem lives out there, I don’t have to look too closely at what I do, what I model, what I avoid.

It’s much easier to say: “These platforms are predatory – we’re victims,” than it is to admit that I struggle with discipline, I don’t always enforce boundaries because it’s tiring, I use screens for relief and convenience and I avoid boredom as much as my kids do.

The external blame route has become very normal.  There’s much less talk of personal responsibility or life skills, and even less modelling of them by adults.

This pattern isn’t unique to social media

Social media is just the most recent example of a broader cultural habit: locating problems entirely in systems and institutions, while quietly ignoring our own participation in them.

You can see it everywhere.

“The food industry makes us unhealthy.” True, but so do the choices we make at the supermarket.

“Corporations are destroying the planet.”  Yes.  But what about the daily choices we make that prioritise ease and consumption?

The external factors are real, but it isn’t the root cause – it’s the part that allows us to look away from ourselves.

Accountability isn’t about blame or shame. It’s about noticing where agency still exists, even in imperfect systems.

It’s uncomfortable, because it means admitting: yes, the world makes bad choices easy. And yes, I still have agency within that. And yes, using it requires effort, with no villain to absorb the blame when I fall short.

Which is precisely why externalising is so tempting.

Why this matters beyond social media

Even if a social media ban passes, and even if it helps a little, the underlying pattern remains.

If we don’t address our tendency to avoid responsibility and discomfort, nothing fundamental changes. We’ll regulate one thing, then move on to the next distraction, the next convenience, the next villain.

Because the real issue isn’t the availability of temptation, in practice it’s our limited capacity to resist it.  That capacity is internal, and no policy can build it for us.  But – and this matters – capacity doesn’t develop in a vacuum. Environments either support it or undermine it.  Which is why where we spend time matters as much as what we decide.

Environments shape behaviour

The environments we’re in have a huge influence on how we behave. Going against the grain of our surroundings is genuinely difficult.

That’s why environments that support agency matter so much — environments where distractions are reduced, discomfort can’t be avoided, choices have real consequences, and effort leads to tangible outcomes.

Outdoor settings do this naturally. With no phone signal, no central heating, and no instant entertainment, you’re forced to respond to what’s actually in front of you. You discover, often to your surprise, that you’re more capable than you thought (especially on multi-day experiences, where you get to reap the delayed rewards of Type 2 Fun).

The same principles can apply at home, too, if we’re willing to design for them.

But they all require something uncomfortable: actively taking responsibility.

The pattern continues

Ban sugar advertising. Remove smartphones from schools. Ban social media.

Some of these measures may be justified. External factors matter.  But they’re not the root.

Until we’re willing to rebuild our capacity for discipline, discomfort, and delayed gratification – and to model that to our children – we’ll keep searching for new things to ban while making the same choices that brought us here.

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About Feral Fathers

The weekends I run take place in the woods, where phones don’t feature, comfort isn’t guaranteed… and agency tends to emerge.

Feral Fathers runs lively weekend camps for fathers and children in Sussex woodland (for ages 8+) and multi-day expeditions in the hills (ages 12+).

Learn more about woodland weekends → 
Learn more about expeditions →

Email: cpacke@yahoo.co.uk | WhatsApp: 07940 272474