A lot of the doom and gloom about “kids these days” misses a fundamental truth: kids are kids. They’ve always been kids and they always will. Even though the technology and the culture around them has changed, young people are still basically the same.
But there are some subtle differences in today’s younger generations. They’re hard to miss unless you’re interacting with a lot of kids en masse. No one notices the changes in America’s young people quite like teachers.
Teachers say boys in class are constantly ‘touching each other’
Eli Carbullido, a young teacher who’s popular on social media for giving the Gen Z perspective on teaching other Gen Zers, says he’s noticed something strange in his classes.
“Having taught middle school and high school boys for the past three years, there’s a lot of things that I’ve just had to accept as normal for them. … But the one thing that I will never understand: Why are you always touching each other?” he says in a recent video on TikTok.
“Literally, 7th, 8th grade, freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors, they are always touching each other.”
He’s not just talking about roughhousing and wrestling. And he’s not talking about queer kids actually flirting with each other. He’s noticing an uptick in platonic, affectionate, and playful touch between the boys he teaches.
“Why do you feel the need to caress each other’s necks, or to grab each other’s legs, or always tickle each other, or play footsie. … Is it a defiance thing? I don’t understand. When I was in high school, I thought it was weird to touch my friends like that.”
In a follow up video, he clarified that he’s simply coming at the question from the perspective of a teacher who’s frustrated with constant disruption in the classroom. He says the number one redirect he has to say, all day long is Please stop touching each other. “It’s honestly distracting,” he says.
Theories abound in the comments, especially from fellow educators who’ve noticed the same thing:
“I teach high school juniors and always have this problem in my boy heavy classes. Just keep redirecting them! This behavior means they feel comfortable in your class and some need this behavior to help them focus. It’s weird, but I like to think of them like little puppies at this stage!”
“As a school counselor, I think the lack affection too. I think that physical affection like parental hugs start to become less after a certain age.”
“Craving physical connection! They don’t want it and they do as they are growing and trying to figure their independence out! It’s actually very normal”
Other teachers are noticing the same trend of boys’ platonic touch
Music teacher Mario Berkley, another popular creator, recently had the same realization.
His Reel went viral, too. In fact, the interest in the topic inspired Berkley to create a seven-part Instagram series reading all the comments and theories:
“I had another teacher tell me once it’s because they’re growing out of hugging their parents but they still need affection so that’s why they’re always on top of each other”
“Cause they dont get enough physical affection at home from their dad, so they search it through fighting and weird shit between friends. THAT’S WHY”
Sociologists and psychologists are tracking how boys are changing
Even just two decades ago, boy’s behavior was heavily governed by a culture of homophobia. Though it was at its worst in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic, any boy who grew up in the ’90s or 2000s can tell you that “gay” was shorthand for bad. Doing anything that could be viewed as effeminate, weak, or especially gay was a social disaster.
Prior to that, it was perfectly normal for straight men to touch each other platonically. Psychology Today writes, “Before the late 19th century, physical affection between men was common, public, and largely unremarkable. Men held hands, embraced, leaned into one another, shared beds, and wrote emotionally intimate letters expressing love and devotion.”
Though it was off limits for a few generations, platonic male touch is slowly being destigmatized. Data scientist Allen Downey writes in his book Probably Overthinking It, “There is clearly a cohort effect: each generation is substantially less homophobic than the one before.”
This cultural shift has allowed boys and men to lean into the support, affection, love, and joy that’s often found in male friendships rather than shying away from it.
Maybe the theories are right that boys are touch starved and not getting enough affection in other areas of their life. That’s probably been true for a long time, though it’s likely getting worse with the rise of screens and social media. But what has changed is that today, one study has found most young men have kissed a male friend on the cheek or even the lips and as many as 23% of Gen Zers openly identify as LGBTQ+. That means the social cost of cuddling your bro has dropped dramatically, even if it might frustrate your teacher.
