In the suffocating cocoon of today’s 24/7, opinion-frenzied world, it’s tempting to believe that everything is unprecedented and the worst example of anything that’s ever happened before.

If you rely on social media for news, you’d be forgiven for imagining that artificial intelligence, global warming, nuclear weapons, human vaccination programmes, Operation Branchform, and Nicola Sturgeon’s friendship with Val MacDermid are the greatest dangers the world has faced, perhaps in the history of humanity.

The latest terror confronting the species is said to be the so-called “manosphere” – an online collective of misogynistic virgins who believe that a secret cabal of feminist conspirators controls the world, including their ability to have sex.

As well as falling behind women in education – with young male engagement and outcomes declining, while women's success rises – the manosphere also points to growing economic inactivity among young men, alongside increasing rates of male suicide, loneliness, and a decline in intimate relationships.

The source of this new global panic was not a ground-breaking social study, inter-governmental report or even a watershed trial, but a TV drama.

The tumultuous public reaction to Adolescence – executive-produced by, among others, Brad Pitt – may not be unprecedented, but it is certainly out of all proportion to the prevalence of the issues it raised.

Read more by Carlos Alba

I should say I thought the Netflix series was a gripping piece of television that dealt powerfully with what is, by any standards, an appalling crime.

It’s difficult to imagine a more senseless and traumatising........

© Herald Scotland