Adolescence swept the board at the Emmys, highlighting the impact of tech on teens. But what can we do about it?

HARD-HITTING The show won eight Emmys

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MARNIE didn't realise at first that her teenage boyfriend was using her phone to control her. Then the phone checking became obsessive.

“Twas getting my phone checked all the time; she says. “Hed always find a way to get past the security. Or hed say, ‘Open your phone or I know you are cheating’. There was never anything on there of course, just messages from friends and family”

Aged 16, she had no model for “normal” teenage relationships, and, to begin with, thought his behaviour part of having an attentive boyfriend. Then, as her abuser - also 16 - began the process of cutting her off from her friends and family, he started to delete messages before she had seen them.

“If I went to the toilet, he would go through my phone and delete texts so I wouldn't know my mum was looking for me - or even that she had tried to contact me” Marnie says. “He didn’t like me talking to anyone at all”

The couple had been at the same school since childhood - and were in sixth form together too. After school, he insisted they spend time in his bedroom at his parents’ house. He even controlled what Marnie wore and where she went.

“He was always checking up on me” Marnie says. “If I was out, Id get lots and lots of missed phone calls and constant texts, and then he would turn up to check I was there.

“Then he started to turn up at my place of work. I had a job as a hotel waitress and he would phone the hotel to make sure I was there.

“He was very controlling, He would lock me in his bedroom and not let me out. He broke my phone and even cut my lip open”

This week, the drama series Adolescence swept the board at this year’s Emmys - winning limited series, directing, writing and three acting awards.