Scoping Study Proposal
Our research and conversations with young activists has inspired us to explore the idea of The First Third - a new think tank by, and for, the people growing up now.
If you would be interested in funding the scoping study, please contact hilary@societyinside.com.
As we see it, the people most shaped by the decisions we make as a society are often the least involved in making them. The First Third seeks to change that through a new style think tank run by and for young people.
The first third of life - birth to roughly thirty - is when the human brain forms, when habits and identities are established, when the foundations of health, opportunity and resilience are laid. It is also the period when the external environment has the most power to harm or help.
Young people are not absent from policy debates about this important part of their lives; they are studied, surveyed, worried about and legislated for constantly. But their own analysis of what is happening to them - grounded in lived experience, backed by rigorous evidence, delivered in their own voice - is almost entirely missing from the discussions where it matters.
The First Third would seek to rectify this, both through its own work and through building coalitions of young people’s organisations to share expertise and co-develop innovative research and advocacy initiatives.
The catalyst for this proposal was our research into the ‘Addiction Economy’ - 9 industries whose business model is ‘to undermine our ability to control our use of their products beyond the point at which it harms us’, which is the NHS definition of Addiction. These are 5 digital: social media, pornography, computer games, gambling, chatbots and 4 physical: ultraprocessed food, alcohol, vapes and cigarettes.
Seeing the impacts on these on young people brought home to us how deeply the commercial environment shapes their lives from babyhood onwards and how business models and policy failures result in harms which compound invisibly, but profoundly, over decades. It also demonstrated a compelling need for a proactive approach to develop and support the flourishing of young people we call the Connection Economy.
Research and activism in these two areas may not be all The First Third does, but it will be its starting point. We have met young activists in many of the sectors who felt similarly angry and motivated to bring young people's voices, evidence and analysis directly to their peers, to policymakers, regulators and businesses whose decisions shape their lives. This study aims to explore how that could be done and with whom.
To see the outline of how the scoping study would work see the proposal below.