As part of a controversial social experiment, ten boys and ten girls were left alone in a house for a week. The results were, well, chaos.
In the early 2000s, the show Cutting Edge on Channel 4 decided to make a documentary called Boys Alone.
The episode pretty much does what it says on the box: ten boys, aged 11 to 12, were sent to live in a beautiful home in Hertfordshire for five days.
No parents or adults (other than the ones behind the camera) were there, and none of the kids had met before.
The house and garden had toys, paints, books, games, and other fun things to do, and the kitchen was full of food.
In 2002, the episode aired, and soon after, another one came out in which the exact same experiment was done, but this time with ten girls.
When it came to the boys, they broke up into groups and destroyed almost everything in the house.
Even though there was a lot of food to choose from, they mostly had sugary cereal and soda.
Most of the group made Michael, one of the boys, the scapegoat. At one point, Michael was tied to a chair in the garden.
But there was more organization, and a couple of the girls took it upon themselves to cook meals and clean up.
In the video above, they can be seen eating one of the meals together at the table before two other girls put on a fashion show to keep everyone entertained.
Even though the documentaries were interesting to watch back home, there was some debate about whether or not it was right to let a group of kids live alone for this long and show it on national TV.
That show was awful. If I had my time again I would say no to allowing him on the show. It was just chaos and mayhem
Sam, who was 19 when the interview took place, said:
Any boy would say yes to an opportunity like that, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. I’d never missed my mum more in my life.
It was mayhem and became depressing as the house divided into the two gangs and war broke out.
Watching this new show, I did think I can’t believe I did that to my son. It was horrible watching it again. It’s an awful lot for a child to go through at that age.
It was mayhem and became depressing as the house divided into the two gangs and war broke out.
The place was trashed and I’m ashamed to say that I even turned into a bit of a hooligan.
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