Is this the trigger that will get young people interested in politics at last?
Connection lost: apparently a million people in the UK have cut their broadband connection to save money as the cost-of-living crisis bites. What will young people do, deprived of their escape from the harsh truth of life here in the 2020s?
If as many as one million people in the UK have cut off their broadband connections due to the cost-of-living crisis, does it mean disaffected young people are being deprived of their distractions?
A few days ago, in a different article, This Writer mentioned a friend who is a father, and who deplored young people’s refusal to engage in politics.
He said he saw little that interested the young apart from YouTube shorts and TikTok; anything lasting more than 15 seconds bored them, and they had no interest in society because they feel that society has taken everything that makes life worth living away from them.
So they distract themselves with Internet-based escapism.
And then this happens:
As many as one million people in the UK may have cut off their broadband due to the cost-of-living crisis.
It comes after Citizens Advice, a network of charities helping people with legal, debt and consumer advice, warned that mobile and broadband prices could rise by up to 17% this year.
The charity said its survey showed broadband … was becoming out of reach for greater numbers of households.
This should be exactly the kind of prompt that young people need.
They are losing their Internet connection because of government decisions that have pushed prices through the roof.
That alone should demonstrate to young people that just because they aren’t interested in politics, politicians aren’t going to leave them alone.
That’s if anybody actually stops to explain it to them.
And, presumably, if that explanation can be made in less than 15 seconds.
Source: One million in UK ‘switch off broadband due to cost of living crisis’
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Surely the government must realise this as a cost to themselves when they have to write to people. I doubt that many of these people have, or even be able to afford to get a landline installed. Govt may have no other option than to revert back to snail mail for ever-increasing numbers of the poorest people.
I have 4 adult sons and in all my years I have never came across a time when the young people were more interested i politics than when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader. Since then they have been disenfranchised in every way and their spirit is waning, though the sites my sons go on are still filled with love for Corbyn and a real hatred for the Tories and Starmer.
Yes, Mr Corbyn gave young people hope and his defeat tore that hope away from them. They need new hope. For people like me, it was possible to keep going on bloody-mindedness, but I appreciate that others need more.