The Guardian view on the last instalment of the Seven Up! series: growing up in public | Editorial

In 1963, a television crew documented the lives of 14 children. Michael Apted, then a young researcher, saw Seven Up! as an opportunity to expose the British class system, juxtaposing public schoolboys with counterparts from children’s homes and council estates. Seven years later, Apted returned to direct an update – then went back again, and again. For the most part, his subjects followed the socioeconomic paths one might have predicted. But what emerged over the decades was much more piercing and poignant than initially envisaged. It turned out – as its participants have noted – that the programme was as much about life itself as class.

The final instalment, 70 Up, currently being shown in two parts on ITV, is extraordinarily moving. We know that the children we see in the original footage will struggle with divorce, bereavement, depression, homelessness, redundancy and ill-health. Two of the original participants, and Apted himself, have died; Nick Hitchon, the boy from a Yorkshire farm who became an expert in nuclear fusion, gave a final interview days before his death. Yet these closing episodes, directed by Asif Kapadia, also capture deep joys such as parenthood, and the satisfaction of the self-knowledge they have earned. There are no simple arcs of redemption or tragedy, but something more muddled and nuanced.

To watch these lives unspool is a remarkable privilege. Yet it is not always a comfortable one, nor one which could easily be repeated. The loss of innocence that 70 Up captures is not only that of its youthful subjects, but of the society around them. Apted’s questions could be blunt, verging on cruel. But the seven-year intervals mean that while the series captured lives, it did not expose them as brutally as the relentlessness of today’s reality television and social media schedules, and the endless replay of clips and memes, would. No subject now could expect anonymity between the instalments. Most would want to shape their own narrative. At least one would surely establish their own supplements line, or become a streamer.

More children than ever are served up for the public gaze, directly by their families as well as the TV and film industries: at the same time, the viewer is increasingly aware of the toll that such attention has previously taken on children in the spotlight, from youthful Hollywood stars to those monetised from babyhood by their parents. Horrifying family influencer scandals underline the questions about who is benefiting and who is watching, in an age where the UK’s National Crime Agency has warned parents against putting their children’s images on public display online because of concerns over AI-generated images of sexual abuse.

Even in the best-case scenario, it is hard to know whether parents, as well as children, can truly understand what exposure to the public eye will mean not only in the moment, but later in life. Fictional versions are not immune to the challenges. Richard Linklater filmed scenes every year to construct his moving film Boyhood, which captures a childhood from five to 18 – but the director’s daughter Lorelei, who played the protagonist’s sister, wanted to opt out as a teenager.

Apted’s subjects pushed back at the director’s biases as they grew and in some cases quit the programme – though all but one returned, and several speak fondly about what it has meant to them. Viewers will be grateful. But it is harder to justify the greater toll of growing up in public these days.