On average, a person spends 90 minutes a day on their phones. This amounts to 23 days per year and a staggering 3.9 years of the average life span.

This results in many people being able to interact with others in the way they desire to be portrayed through sending thought out text messages and the perfect photograph being uploaded to social media platforms such as Instagram after taking hundreds of photographs of the same image. This often then causes people to have a false and distorted perception of reality as you only see 'the best version' of oneself on social media and technology rather than seeing their true unfiltered personalities and their difficulties in their day to day lives.

The question is does this result in a less confidient generation?

I think yes.

This increased reliance on social media and technology has caused many people especially younger generations to become less confident in face to face interactions and have a lower overall self-esteem as they fear judgement and criticism from their peers. Likes and followers on social media also intensifies this sense judgment as it can often be a method of measuring popularity.

Schemes such as the Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge allow younger generations to develop a higher self-esteem as they learn different techniques of how to speak in front of an audience and how to answer on the spot questions which is essential for an ever-growing more competitive job market.

When the Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge took place recently at my school, many pupils were initially nervous despite the class group being relatively close. This demonstrated that even when being in a close group many still fear judegment. Even those who seemed the most confident still had a sense of anxiety and doubt about their abilities. However, by the end of the workshop everyone was more confident as they were able to practice their social skills more as oppose to communicating from behind a screen.