One of the most dispiriting aspects of the all-pervasive impact of social media on young people is how it makes each individual believe they are the centre of the world.
From selfies to sharing life updates or even endless “unwrapped” posts at the end of the year, it is very much about saying, “Look at me.”
Adults are not immune - many of us know that we use social media and our phones too much yet we struggle to avoid their allure. For teenagers, though, with brains undergoing changes hard-wired to seek connection and attention, few can escape their clutches.
With this in mind, Australia’s move at the end of 2025 to introduce a range of social media bans for under-16s is notable and will be watched closely by others around the world for its impact.
Is this enough, though? Bans work to a point but they spark howls of outrage and attempts to circumvent them. What we need is something deeper that takes the form of a counter-culture to the “me, me, me” mindset that social media firms have popularised.
It’s about ‘we, not I’
Perhaps more than anywhere else, schools are well placed to model and embed the values of “we, not I”.
By their very nature, schools bring people together with a common purpose. They flourish when everyone is singing the same song.
During 2026, in schools across the nation, teachers and leaders need to set out a covenant in which community values and actions are celebrated, placing the common good before personal gain.
Through assemblies, subject teaching, visits out and visitors in, and personal and social education, all teachers really can galvanise their students to appreciate that some of the world’s pressing challenges have some answers in “we” before “I”.
Teaching the future
In our classrooms we learn that fire gave us warmth and cooking, but it also gave us war and destruction. We learn that the internal combustion engine gave us mobility and industry, but that now it gives us climate change.
Look out of the classroom window and reflect globally. Climate degradation, the movement of peoples, the scars of wars, tensions on national borders, criminality small and large, outbreaks of disease - each requires relentless focus with people acting together for shared gain.
With AI upon us, will our economies struggle to cope with massive unemployment and income inequality? Will democracies sink under a sea of disinformation? Or will AI improve the longevity, health and wellbeing of countless citizens?
Children in our classrooms today are the parents, employers and employees who will shape the globe towards 2050. Their formative education, their values, their kindness and their mindset will be decisive.
If these challenges are to be solved, it must be done with a collective - not individual - mindset.
As such, I’d urge educators everywhere to make 2026 about helping young people to see their future as about community and togetherness - about not taking yet another selfie but sharing photos that capture individuals striving together for the common good.
Roy Blatchford was founding CEO of the National Education Trust and previously served as one of His Majesty’s inspectors of schools (HMIs) in England. He is the founder of
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