AS the school summer holidays reach their end, what hopes and fears fill students, parents and educators alike? For many this is an exciting if not daunting prospect and, often, a time filled with stress.

Never has the pressure exerted on young people been so great. Not just the usual pressure of academic expectation but also the wider ones from future plans dogged by the prospect of huge debt in order to attend university, or the limited opportunity of obtaining an apprenticeship for those that prefer the less academic route.

The increasing pressures on our young reach into areas not experienced by previous generations. The 24-hour nature of advertising outlets previously unavailable to marketers wishing to exploit the hugely profitable child and teenage market allows an endless stream of lifestyle ads to appear via the wonder of social media and through a society hooked on virtual reality.

An app is available for just about anything today, from the countless digital distractions of a myriad of mindless games to lifestyle, health, diet and the like. The whole movement into the digital interface that seems to be replacing the old-fashioned human face is a trend that we, as a world society, may well regret.

Humans are, by design, gregarious animals that depend on social interplay for much more than safety in numbers. We benefit physically, mentally and emotionally from the presence of others. Civilisation was born on close communal bonds forged around campfires encircled by the tribal community, enhanced by the creation of music, dance and the development of oral histories that not only entertained those gathered but educated the young. Opportunities for any really meaningful, intergenerational, communal gatherings seem to be shrinking.

More people of all ages seem to be replacing physical communication with that of androids. More and more people now shop from the comfort of their own computer as opposed to venturing out to the high street and actually interacting with humanity.

Our work at Kandu often sees us having to negotiate to limit the reliance that many of our young people have on social media and particularly mobile phones. Many seem to be as attached to their phones as insecure babies are to their security blankets.

The amount of disquiet that is caused to a young person by the sometimes-shocking vitriol that is communicated via these media leads me to consider that it is potentially the faceless, distant nature of the medium used to communicate that dehumanises both the message sender and its receiver.

People often communicate thoughts and all manner of insult through cyberspace that they wouldn't dream of espousing face to face. In the past, if we experienced difficulties with other pupils at school at least we could go home and forget about it till the next day. Now a young person is potentially reachable 24/7 in the privacy of his or her own home. They have nowhere to find solace.

Sadly, for some young people, telling them to ignore all forms of social media in order that they are not continually cyber-bullied can be like asking them to stop breathing. The very addictive nature of social media can lead the young to believe that if they are not on the network and constantly online then in some bizarre way their existence and validity is somehow diminished.

Potentially, the more worrying aspect of this is that it’s adults who invent and develop such devices and it's adults that market to and continually bombard our young with more and more pressure. It's adults who are creating a whole world of pain and it's adults who can't find the resources to support them when the pressure inevitably becomes too much.

We have some of the most unhappy young people in the Western Hemisphere, greater instances of mental health, depression and suicide, with fewer avenues for them to seek support… (unless it's online of course).