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Why Dubai teens are going off the grid to make friends
In the UAE, a handful of groups create safe platforms for teenagers to socialise offline, and members say such groups help them foster long-lasting friendships through meaningful interactions
- PUBLISHED: Fri 9 May 2025, 6:15 AM
Parents of teenagers have begun to greet each other with a question: “Have you watched Adolescence yet?”
In the limited series, a 13-year-old is accused of murdering a female schoolmate. But it’s a whydunit, not a whodunit, so the Netflix hit delves into the dark shadowy side of the Internet where ‘manosphere’ influencers with extreme misogynistic views rule, teenagers bully each other through emojis with codes, and sinister messages and incel content on social media destroys young, developing minds. Suffice to say, parents cannot wait to get their teenage kids off the Internet.
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In the UAE, a handful of groups create safe platforms for teenagers to socialise offline, and members say that in a city like Dubai, which has a reputation for being a transient city, such groups help them foster long-lasting friendships through meaningful interactions and fun activities that are tailored to suit their needs.
The power of offline interactions
Natasha’s* 16-year-old son has Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and dysgraphia. “Although he gets good support at school and home for his education, this has limited the development of his social skills and has led to low self-esteem,” explains Natasha, when we chat via Google Meet. The teenager is sporty and likes participating in several activities like gymnastics, swimming, and boxing, but Natasha noticed that he was unable to form “one-on-one connections” with his peers. “He talks to people but that’s it, it ends there,” she adds. His psychologist suggested that he enrol in a group for teenagers called Teenovation, which he did about three months ago. She describes the group as a safe space for her son where he could mingle with others and just be himself. “They have fun, adventurous activities, which my son looks forward to,” she adds.
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As a teacher, Natasha is aware of the struggles teenagers face. “All the kids are online where they are exposed to all kinds of people from all over the world. Now, they go out with people on the weekends after deciding over the Internet to meet up. They don’t even know who they are and it can have disastrous consequences.”
Teenovation, for children between 11 and 18, was founded by Dubai resident Margareta Luis. Her 14- and 17-year-old children currently attend a ‘progressive, project-based’ online school and organised activities for parents and children from the homeschooling community. But once, an incident of bullying left her children so affected that they “completely shut down”. “They would just stay at home, and study from morning till night,” she says. “I would bring them breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the table, and they wouldn’t want to come out.”
“So, I decided, I can’t see my kids like this and that I need to do something about it,” she continues. “I stopped their studies and decided that we were going to have fun that entire week. I gathered two other kids and we started with a simple bowling game. That was three-and-a-half years ago.” Gradually, the group began to expand through word of mouth.
The group started out as an informal community for teenagers but about one-and-a-half years ago, Luis made Teenovation a licensed enterprise. “I have been approached by desperate parents who were worried about their kids who suffer from depression, anxiety and other issues like bullying, body image issues, low self-esteem, and even self-harm. I discovered that all of this had the same root cause: social media misinformation and addiction to screens.” There are also children who have been unable to find friends after school hours or don’t have anything productive to do after school and, as a result, gravitate towards their laptops or mobile phones.
Today, the group has about 100 kids. It holds activities like regular camps at Jebel Ali, ice skating, and movie nights by the beach. Members, she adds, also participate in a host of other initiatives like competitions, volunteering activities, internships, workshops, conferences, projects, and other events like hackathons, which are organised by engineers from reputed companies. “And we are already helping our teens through our initiative ‘Made by teens for teens’, where they run and monetise their projects,” says Luis, adding that they are also bringing Docathon, an international film festival for student filmmakers, to the region and hosting it here. There are several other plans in the pipeline as well, like launching an app for teenagers.
A monthly membership costs Dh200 per child (the rate is adjusted depending on the number of siblings in the group). “I always ask: what do teens need to prepare for life and what does the future need from them? How can I support them? It’s the same questions that I ask for my own children,” says Luis. “How can teens build social skills if there aren’t real social opportunities outside the school hours? Sports, classes, everything is either competitive or performance-based, so where is the free play, connection and bonding?”
The challenge of making friends
A quick visit to the subreddit r/UAETeenagers gives one a sense of just how much the country’s youth is struggling to make friends. Members frequently post about loneliness and ask how and where to make friends in the country.
“Many teens find themselves in a paradox where they desire to make new friends, but are hesitant about face-to-face interactions,” explains Dr Alfred Gull, clinical psychologist at the German Neuroscience Center. “This can be attributed to the comfort and familiarity of online communication, fear of judgment or rejection in real-life interactions, and the convenience of digital platforms that offer them a sense of security and control over their interactions, which can be less intimidating than face-to-face encounters,” he says. However, there are case studies that suggest that excessive online interaction can lead to issues such as “reduced face-to-face communication skills, increased feelings of isolation, and potential impacts on mental health”.
Teenagers in the UAE face a set of unique challenges. “The fluctuation among expat families who return to their home countries hinders teenagers’ long-term relationships. Cultural expectations and norms may also differ from their own,” he says. But Dr Gull also points out that schools, community centres, workshops, and sports clubs in the UAE provide fantastic opportunities for teenagers to meet and develop new skills. “They also encourage teamwork and camaraderie, and such interactions can lead to improved social skills and emotional intelligence, stronger and more meaningful relationships, better mental health and reduced feelings of loneliness, enhanced communication skills, and the ability to read non-verbal cues.”
Coraline Lefebvre formed Teenagers in Dubai in October last year, on Facebook. “I am a mother of three children — two teenage girls and one toddler,” says Lefebvre, when we speak. “It was difficult for my daughters to keep friends as in Dubai, a lot of people arrive and then leave for their home countries, or other countries. So I thought it would be a nice idea to create a group on Facebook, so that my two teenage daughters could expand their friends circle. And it worked so well that we reached more than 1,000 families in five months.”
“I was very surprised, actually, because I created this group only for my 14- and 16-year-old girls, and what should have been something a bit personal and private became something really public,” she continues. “We welcomed so many teenagers and families who encountered the same situation as us. Parents have approached me and said that their kids have been suffering from social phobia or loneliness since the pandemic and that this group has helped them a lot.”
What was supposed to be a simple group on Facebook soon expanded and began to organise a range of events primarily for teenagers, although it does have a few activities for younger children and senior citizens as well. But its most popular activities like yachting and fishing trips, sushi masterclass, photography sessions, and escape games remain exclusive to teenagers. “We organised a two- to three-hour long trip for teenage girls on a yacht where we also had beauty workshops onboard and they could do light makeup, nails, art, and tattoos,” explains Lefebvre, who has worked in yacht and mega yacht management for around 20 years and collaborates with companies and brokers in the industry to organise these trips. She also got a licence to organise events for Teenagers in Dubai, she says.
Enrolling in the group is free, but members need to pay to attend activities although Lefebvre says she offers discounts or free sessions to parents on occasion, for certain, specific reasons. “We have organised so many activities that are inclusive and open to all teenagers, including those with different needs — for example, we were at European Equestrian Academy a few weekends ago for a horse-riding and grooming session and we had a special teacher there who was able to interact with children on a one-on-one basis.”
When Ajman resident Victoria Evans moved to the UAE, she was keen to connect with other families to help her 14-year-old daughter settle. “I put a message out on a local Facebook group and Coraline replied. We got chatting, met for coffee and our kids got it off straight away.”
“We have been very lucky to have lived across the world — the UK, Spain, New Zealand and now, the UAE. In our experience, Dubai offers the very best opportunities for teens to meet, and enjoy activities together.”
“The first activity my daughter joined was a mall hangout where she had a lovely time meeting some other teens in a relaxed and enjoyable way,” continues Evans. “She has since attended the yacht party, a chocolate-making workshop and an Asian cooking master class. The kids are so kind, not cliquey, and they all stay in touch between their activities, which is absolutely lovely.”
*Name withheld on request