8 ms·

I remember being young when "kids don't play in the yard anymore, they just play on their phone/consoles/computer" started to be a big talking point. Even then

I remember being young when "kids don't play in the yard anymore, they just play on their phone/consoles/computer" started to be a big talking point. Even then I recognized that the reason I was on the computer so much was, at least in part, because it was so much easier to hang out with my friends online than it was to coordinate with my parents to try and get travel to their house, or to convince my parents to let a friend come over. And I consider myself relatively lucky in that part of the US where I live, despite being in a relatively rural region, is remarkably walkable. As opposed to most places in the US, which are effectively micro islands when it comes to getting anywhere on foot. Then lets also add on how loitering is treated as such a great offense. That traditional areas for young adults to just "hang" (cafe, bowling alley, arcade) have increasingly priced them out. That a teenager hanging out on their own is often suspected to be "up to something" In a time before the cell phone, we apparently let kids wander unsupervised more than we do in an era where they can get a hold of their parents at almost any time? It's ludicrous.

jghn 4mo ago
I agree that people don't give this explanation enough credit. I was online in that age group by the late 80s. Just as in your story, that started me down a path of not going outside as much, even though the other kids would be outside doing outside things. Why would I go out and play basketball or something else I didn't like when I could instead be online talking to people with shared interests?
- empressplay 4mo ago
  Me too, but I wasn't on AOL or anything long-distance, instead I called local chat systems / BBSes. And because they were local we met up physically as a group at least weekly (almost daily in the summertime). The summer I was 16 I spent more time away from the computer, hanging out with other teenagers I met on the computer, than I would have otherwise.
ryandrake 4mo ago
Good point about the proliferation of the absurd “crime” of loitering, which apparently just means “existing somewhere without spending money.” I remember being a teen in the 80s and what we did every day would be considered “loitering” today. There’s not much else for kids to do outside the home besides loiter.
- skinfaxi 4mo ago
  I would be surprised if loitering laws are even enforceable today. I can see trespassing if you're asked to leave and don't, but getting arrested for being in one place too long? Especially a public place like a park? I'd donate to that gofundme. Kids could learn something from first amendment auditors and just start filming themselves in public.
  - dfxm12 4mo ago
    Parks have operating hours. Cities have noise ordinances, etc., to give Cops options for booking who they want for whatever they want. Cops don't necessarily care what the laws are, anyway. I've taken a ride in paddy wagons to a station before for hanging out in a playground because a neighbor said we were causing trouble. We were just talking. No, we weren't processed, but we were left to figure out our own way back home. This was in the 90s. The same stuff happens today though.
    - hylaride 4mo ago
      The small rural Canadian town I grew up in (~2000 people) during the 1990s had a real estate agent that would call the cops if he saw any teenagers out after 9pm. He would literally lie to them, saying we were causing trouble if we were just walking to the convenience store. He was trying to keep the town "desirable" or something. This man fought anything that would keep teenagers occupied. Skate parks, benches, etc. My group would lay in the park during the dog days of summer just chatting and passing around a jug of orange juice, which he would tell the cops was spiked with vodka (which we did do, but never in the park). Of course, we (as in the teens in general) probably fed into his paranoia - let's just say harassing the neighbourhood teenagers rarely ends well...
slfnflctd 4mo ago
My childhood was free range. Some of the greatest memories of my life (admittedly, also some not-so-great ones, but still) are from that time period. Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted, but I do feel it helped me become a more resilient and independent person. I moved out of my parents' house at 18 and never had to go back for more than a few weeks. I have persevered through a widely varied array of very difficult situations. In some ways, I'm not sure I would've made it as far as I have without those experiences as a kid. Of course, maybe I could've done even better if I had stayed home and studied more, and maybe avoided some of those difficult situations? But I am glad to say I am okay with how things turned out. I definitely believe overly sheltered kids are missing something important. There is a better balance we can strike, I think.
- buellerbueller 4mo ago
  >Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted When the statistics are vastly in one's favor, it isn't luck.
  - Aeolun 4mo ago
    I keep telling my wife our son is literally more likely to be hit by lightning than to be snatched by some rando, but somehow that is hard to understand.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ivell 4mo ago
      Not many movies are made on people getting hit by lightning. Perception beats stats and facts.
      - buellerbueller 4mo ago
        yes, feels and vibes beat rationality and science. Is it any surprise the US is backsliding?
elric 4mo ago
> Then lets also add on how loitering is treated as such a great offense. The Wikipedia page on Loitering [1] is wild. A surprisingly large number of places seem to have criminalised "just existing somewhere". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering
molsongolden 4mo ago
> Have online worlds become the last free places for children? > [...]This evidence tells us something important about human development: children want to explore together and build independent peer cultures that are partially distinct from the ways of adults. Yet since the early 1970s, many Western countries have increasingly limited the social and physical independence of children. > In physical spaces, we restrict the movement of children and refuse to let them play and explore without us. But that doesn’t mean they won’t look for ways to escape. > In the past two decades, children have found a new place to roam: the endless jungle of the internet. https://psyche.co/ideas/have-online-worlds-become-the-last-free-places-for-children https://psyche.co/ideas/have-online-worlds-become-the-last-f...
gentleman11 4mo ago
Not to mention how parents might get in actual legal trouble now for not acting like this
ge96 4mo ago
[dead]
abalashov 4mo ago
Came here to say what you already said: the built environment accounts for a great deal of this. It's simply not possible in a great many parts of Middle America to walk or bike over to a friend's house, and to the extent any social fabric exists, it is built entirely atop parents' willingness to drive you over for coordinated and time-boxed play-dates. I have been arguing for almost my entire life, as a European immigrant, that built environment and automobile sprawl shapes relationships and cohesion. I was constantly dismissed and told that these are superficial differences, that people are just as lonely in dense, transportation-rich urban jungles, and that motivated people in the right cultural context can defeat any environmental obstacles to friendship and connection. I hope the tide on that is starting to turn. Built environment isn't everything, but it's a lot.
GeekyBear 4mo ago
> it was so much easier to hang out with my friends online than it was to coordinate with my parents to try and get travel to their house The norm in the 70's was for younger kids to have multiple groups of friends, at least until they were old enough to ride their bike across town. When you spent time with larger groups of kids, like at school, you could make friends based on shared interests. After school, your friend group was based on proximity.
- bombcar 4mo ago
  I feel with larger school sizes and online capabilities we've lost the friendship of necessity - where you'd be friends with the kids on the block "because you had to" and there wasn't really any other option. They might not be amazing friends, or life-long ones, but they were friends.
  - GeekyBear 4mo ago
    Learning to get along with people you don't completely "vibe with" is an important life skill.
jimt1234 4mo ago
You hit on what I consider a paradox of parenting today: Kids have access to instant communication with their parents/guardians, yet they can't be left on their own in public because it's too dangerous. That never made sense to me. I've tried to convince parents that kids are actually safer today (primarily because of smart phones, but also because of Ring cameras on every damn house) than us Gen-Xers were, but no one buys it. I hear the same excuses: It's too risky these days. There's so many creeps out there. Have you seen the registered offender websites? And that's just the creeps we know about!

jghn 4mo ago

I agree that people don't give this explanation enough credit. I was online in that age group by the late 80s. Just as in your story, that started me down a path of not going outside as much, even though the other kids would be outside doing outside things. Why would I go out and play basketball or something else I didn't like when I could instead be online talking to people with shared interests?

empressplay 4mo ago
Me too, but I wasn't on AOL or anything long-distance, instead I called local chat systems / BBSes. And because they were local we met up physically as a group at least weekly (almost daily in the summertime). The summer I was 16 I spent more time away from the computer, hanging out with other teenagers I met on the computer, than I would have otherwise.

ryandrake 4mo ago

Good point about the proliferation of the absurd “crime” of loitering, which apparently just means “existing somewhere without spending money.” I remember being a teen in the 80s and what we did every day would be considered “loitering” today. There’s not much else for kids to do outside the home besides loiter.

skinfaxi 4mo ago
I would be surprised if loitering laws are even enforceable today. I can see trespassing if you're asked to leave and don't, but getting arrested for being in one place too long? Especially a public place like a park? I'd donate to that gofundme. Kids could learn something from first amendment auditors and just start filming themselves in public.
- dfxm12 4mo ago
  Parks have operating hours. Cities have noise ordinances, etc., to give Cops options for booking who they want for whatever they want. Cops don't necessarily care what the laws are, anyway. I've taken a ride in paddy wagons to a station before for hanging out in a playground because a neighbor said we were causing trouble. We were just talking. No, we weren't processed, but we were left to figure out our own way back home. This was in the 90s. The same stuff happens today though.
  - hylaride 4mo ago
    The small rural Canadian town I grew up in (~2000 people) during the 1990s had a real estate agent that would call the cops if he saw any teenagers out after 9pm. He would literally lie to them, saying we were causing trouble if we were just walking to the convenience store. He was trying to keep the town "desirable" or something. This man fought anything that would keep teenagers occupied. Skate parks, benches, etc. My group would lay in the park during the dog days of summer just chatting and passing around a jug of orange juice, which he would tell the cops was spiked with vodka (which we did do, but never in the park). Of course, we (as in the teens in general) probably fed into his paranoia - let's just say harassing the neighbourhood teenagers rarely ends well...

slfnflctd 4mo ago

My childhood was free range. Some of the greatest memories of my life (admittedly, also some not-so-great ones, but still) are from that time period. Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted, but I do feel it helped me become a more resilient and independent person. I moved out of my parents' house at 18 and never had to go back for more than a few weeks. I have persevered through a widely varied array of very difficult situations. In some ways, I'm not sure I would've made it as far as I have without those experiences as a kid. Of course, maybe I could've done even better if I had stayed home and studied more, and maybe avoided some of those difficult situations? But I am glad to say I am okay with how things turned out. I definitely believe overly sheltered kids are missing something important. There is a better balance we can strike, I think.

buellerbueller 4mo ago
>Maybe I was lucky to not get severely injured or abducted When the statistics are vastly in one's favor, it isn't luck.
- Aeolun 4mo ago
  I keep telling my wife our son is literally more likely to be hit by lightning than to be snatched by some rando, but somehow that is hard to understand.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ivell 4mo ago
    Not many movies are made on people getting hit by lightning. Perception beats stats and facts.
    - buellerbueller 4mo ago
      yes, feels and vibes beat rationality and science. Is it any surprise the US is backsliding?

elric 4mo ago

> Then lets also add on how loitering is treated as such a great offense. The Wikipedia page on Loitering [1] is wild. A surprisingly large number of places seem to have criminalised "just existing somewhere". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering

molsongolden 4mo ago

> Have online worlds become the last free places for children? > [...]This evidence tells us something important about human development: children want to explore together and build independent peer cultures that are partially distinct from the ways of adults. Yet since the early 1970s, many Western countries have increasingly limited the social and physical independence of children. > In physical spaces, we restrict the movement of children and refuse to let them play and explore without us. But that doesn’t mean they won’t look for ways to escape. > In the past two decades, children have found a new place to roam: the endless jungle of the internet. https://psyche.co/ideas/have-online-worlds-become-the-last-free-places-for-children https://psyche.co/ideas/have-online-worlds-become-the-last-f...

gentleman11 4mo ago

Not to mention how parents might get in actual legal trouble now for not acting like this

ge96 4mo ago

[dead]

abalashov 4mo ago

Came here to say what you already said: the built environment accounts for a great deal of this. It's simply not possible in a great many parts of Middle America to walk or bike over to a friend's house, and to the extent any social fabric exists, it is built entirely atop parents' willingness to drive you over for coordinated and time-boxed play-dates. I have been arguing for almost my entire life, as a European immigrant, that built environment and automobile sprawl shapes relationships and cohesion. I was constantly dismissed and told that these are superficial differences, that people are just as lonely in dense, transportation-rich urban jungles, and that motivated people in the right cultural context can defeat any environmental obstacles to friendship and connection. I hope the tide on that is starting to turn. Built environment isn't everything, but it's a lot.

GeekyBear 4mo ago

> it was so much easier to hang out with my friends online than it was to coordinate with my parents to try and get travel to their house The norm in the 70's was for younger kids to have multiple groups of friends, at least until they were old enough to ride their bike across town. When you spent time with larger groups of kids, like at school, you could make friends based on shared interests. After school, your friend group was based on proximity.

bombcar 4mo ago
I feel with larger school sizes and online capabilities we've lost the friendship of necessity - where you'd be friends with the kids on the block "because you had to" and there wasn't really any other option. They might not be amazing friends, or life-long ones, but they were friends.
- GeekyBear 4mo ago
  Learning to get along with people you don't completely "vibe with" is an important life skill.

jimt1234 4mo ago

You hit on what I consider a paradox of parenting today: Kids have access to instant communication with their parents/guardians, yet they can't be left on their own in public because it's too dangerous. That never made sense to me. I've tried to convince parents that kids are actually safer today (primarily because of smart phones, but also because of Ring cameras on every damn house) than us Gen-Xers were, but no one buys it. I hear the same excuses: It's too risky these days. There's so many creeps out there. Have you seen the registered offender websites? And that's just the creeps we know about!