Glued to screens and with nothing else in town to entertain them, Warwick youth carry their problems everywhere and there is no escape.

Former Warwick State High School student and young leader Jacob Meiklejohn said many adults did not understand the unique challenges millennials faced in an age of social media.

On the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence, Jacob said young people lived in a whole new world of cyber bullying that didn’t exist 20 years ago.

“So many people are fixated on their phones and you constantly have all this pressure all the time,” he said.

“I don’t think it is any wonder people feel the way they do when all you hear is that someone has commuted suicide or there has been another shooting in America or the crisis in the Middle East.”

Jacob said social media meant conflict on a local level was constant.

“Locally is just feels like there is controversy all the time – everything is just us and them.”

“But that no longer turns off. When you leave school you are still seeing that all the time on Facebook and on Snapchat and Instagram,” he said.

Read more: No End to Negativity

Image source – Flickr.com