Pornography and video games are behind a surge in jobless young men, the work and pensions minister has warned.

Mel Stride said that easy access to explicit content and videogames is driving poor mental health among teenage and young adult men.

They have been dropping out of the workforce in droves and fuelling worrying levels of economic inactivity across Britain.

Speaking to MPs yesterday, Stride said porn and gaming were a 'prevalent factor' in the alarming joblessness figures for men.

A staggering one in seven young men are now neither in employment, education or training, according to the latest Office for National Statistics numbers. For young women, this is one in ten.




Mel Stride (pictured) said that easy access to explicit content and videogames is driving poor mental health among teenage and young adult men

And it is getting worse - an extra 99,000 16-to-24 year old men were workless or out of education by the end of March. There are now 900,000 young men out of work.

In contrast, there were 11,000 fewer young women out of work at the same time.

Social media platforms and technology were feeding into 'very worrying' mental health issues, the minister said.

Stride called for more research on the negative impacts of things like pornography, video games and social media, on youngsters' mental health.

He said: escort services online 'I do think probably as a society we haven't explored and fully opened up exactly what this technology means for young people's mental health because I think the impacts are actually very profound and probably an area where there needs to be more research.'

Young women's wellbeing is also being damaged by unrealistic ideals depicted on apps like TikTok and Instagram, he added to the Work and Pensions select committee.




Stride called for more research on the negative impacts of things like pornography, video games and social media, on youngsters' mental health. (File image) 

Last year, the US Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease concluded that anxiety and depression were 'strongly related' to pornography consumption.

It comes as Britain is in the grips of one of its worst sick note epidemics - with the oldest and youngest workers driving the trend.

More than 2.8million Brits of working age are jobless due to ill health, including mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

The pandemic had also hindered young people and contributed to poor mental health, Stride added.


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