One in three teenagers (34%) say they are worried about what the future will bring, making it the most common concern among young people today according to new NSPCC polling released to mark Childline's 40th anniversary on 30 October.
The survey of 2,260 teenagers, conducted by Savanta, also found that more than one in five young people (22%) are troubled by the state of the world and a quarter (26%) said mental health was one of their top concerns. Only 14% cited social media and being online as a major worry.
In a parallel poll, 2,290 adults – who were teenagers when Childline launched in 1986 – said social media and being online (66%), body image and appearance (49%) and mental health issues (46%) were the main reasons why it was harder being a teenager now than when they were growing up.
The new polling comes as Childline marks 40 years of supporting children and young people across the UK and just weeks after Childline Founder and President, Dame Esther Rantzen, sadly died.
Since then, the service has delivered over six million counselling sessions to children on an extensive range of issues, including abuse, online harms and bullying.
During its early years, physical and sexual abuse were the most common reasons young people contacted Childline for help. Today, and for the past decade, mental health has consistently been the number one concern.
The way children access support has also changed significantly over the last forty years, from phone calls and letters to online support. In the 80s and early 90s more than half of contacts to Childline came via telephone boxes, with the remainder made through landline phones.
Today, almost three quarters of engagement with children take place online, with trained counsellors providing support through one-to-one chats alongside the service's telephone helpline.
