15 ms·

Part of the issue, I think is that teenagers are more restricted by parents, laws, and business owners than they used to be. As with younger children, parents

by Zak 8y ago

Part of the issue, I think is that teenagers are more restricted by parents, laws, and business owners than they used to be. As with younger children, parents are less likely now than in past decades to allow their teenage children to travel alone or hang out in groups without adults present. Legal restrictions compound the issue, with curfew laws being increasingly common, as well as increased driving ages and graduated licenses. Finally, businesses that used to be popular hangouts for teenagers, such as shopping malls have become less welcoming, often having limits on when teenagers are allowed on the premises without a parent.

skywhopper 8y ago
Yes, more and more super-suburban living, combined with increasingly restrictive teen driving regulations, curfews, and fear-based media stories about abductions have ratcheted down the ability of teens to hang out together. So when technology came along to enable improved interpersonal contact, it was embraced far more rapidly than it would have been if teen freedom were as high as it was in the 70s. The graphs they show don't perfectly correlate to the trends in hanging out in person. While smartphones have definitely contributed to changes in the culture (for everyone, not just teens), it's false to pretend that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. It just as well may correlate to being bombarded by reactionary hatred from adults over things teens have grown up thinking about more openly, like more open ideas about gender and sexuality. Or perhaps from finding themselves in a culture of fear about mass shootings while again faced with an adult political establishment who does nothing about it. Or maybe just facing the reality that the grown-ups are making things worse, day by day, and that they're going to have to clean this all up after us. Smartphones have nothing to do with that.
- trhway 8y ago
  > that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. loneliness? The amount and richness of communication like the number of participants, number of parallel communications, number of the topics and the range of opinions, etc. is most probably much higher when using smartphones then when it is subject to the limitations of physical presence. Our species brain development is basically history of social communication, and the smartphones transcending those limits of physical presence is the next step for the brain development of our species. Granted the adjustment period may have its quirks, like absence of non-verbal parts of communication - face emotions, gestures, etc. - that our brain evolved to expect and not receives anymore and thus doesn't get the associated dopamine - may feel like loneliness.
  - stiglitz 8y ago
    It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.” I’m amused by this notion that “it may feel like loneliness but it’s actually the richness of our new modes of communication you are feeling! Just get used to it!”
    - trhway 8y ago
      >It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.” the tech today allows to for example easily and frequently Skype with your family, like parents, sibling, nephews residing on the other continent. A humongous improvement compare to previous modes of expensive international phone, especially when many of those participants didn't have a phone back then. What is inhuman here? It also allowed for communication like we have here on HN. Before, it would be limited to just watercooler chat with colleagues at work with very limited exposure and exploration of genuine opposite/conflicting opinions, whereis we can have a bleeding-trolling-edge blast online.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y ago
        Just because you can communicate with someone doesn’t mean you don’t feel lonely.
        stiglitz 8y ago
        This is the most concise statement of the problem with communication technology I’ve ever read.
      - Retric 8y ago
        An in person hug with a close friend or family member is worth a lot. Phone calls have been around for a long time and still miss out on such things. Cellphones provide some benifit, but often reduce the quality of face to face interactions by distracting one or more participants.
- isoskeles 8y ago
  * suburbs [check] * "hatred" [check] * gun owners [check] Looks like this is an open-and-shut case. The problem is Republicans / red staters / etc.
threatofrain 8y ago
There also ought be more public spaces in general. When everything is all zoned up to be residential or commercial, there's nowhere to go without a credit card.
- grawprog 8y ago
  This is becoming more of a problem, at least in the city I live. Greenspaces and public parks are being replaced with condos and apartment complexes with their own walled off private courtyards and such. Parks, little groves of trees and stuff are the kinds of places we'd hang out as teenagers a lot.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Which city is that? Most cities are unwilling to sell off public parks to private developers. Do you have specific examples of parks that were built over and not replaced with something accessible to the public?
    - baroffoos 8y ago
      In South Australia there was recently protests to stop a parklands getting turned in to a supermarket. I never heard what ended up happening there but the council was pushing hard to get it converted because "Shoppers are demanding more choice"
    - grawprog 8y ago
      I'd rather not be too specific, but in the lower mainland in BC. Yeah, the one that used to be just down the road from me that's about to be turned, first into a giant pit, then into a large complex of highrises.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  My area recently zoned a block of unused space to be used for dirt jumps and left some shovels and a wheelbarrow there. Its now an awesome place to go hang out and ride a bike. Every day when school finishes you see a group of about 10 kids riding from school to the jumps. It cost the council probably less than $1000 to turn a block of weeds in to an awesome social space.
e40 8y ago
I can tell you that as a parent of an 18 yr old, I've always encouraged him to go out and be with his friends. Since he was 12, he's much preferred to meet online in games. Whole groups of them. Whooping and hollering until the wee hours of the morning, when they can. But, I generally agree with your statement. Oh, I have a son, some it might be vastly different for daughters.
- singingboyo 8y ago
  I think encouragement and all-else-being-equal preference for in-person vs. online is pretty much a non-factor, short of extreme cases. As mentioned above, there's just no comparison any more. I grew up in the city and had very, very few restrictions[1] on where/when I was out from around age 15, and we still preferred online. Going out in person is expensive, not everyone had equal transit access (and no one had a consistently available car), etc. Yes, there were people who didn't join up online, who I would've loved to see more of. Meeting up with them more often would have been great, but doing it regularly just wasn't feasible - we'd see everyone at school and maybe after for 15-30 minutes while people cleared out, but that was the only regular thing. [1] Mostly of the 'tell us where and when' variety - if my parents knew roughly how to find me if needed, that was good enough.
- chongli 8y ago
  Video games have brought an unprecedented transformation in the way young boys spend their free time, and not all for the good. As a volunteer who tutors kids in high school (and a former "hardcore gamer") and middle school I will say, anecdotally speaking, that they've made boys more sedentary, more isolated, and less interested in school. I think the most insidious aspect of video games is that they are a success surrogate. I spent over a decade and a half playing games after dropping out of high school at age 16. What kept me going was the feeling of success and accomplishment I got from impressing my online friends in games. Now in my mid-30s, I'm an undergrad in mathematics and finally putting my life back together. I've come to realize that video games are a terrible substitute for real life accomplishments and that online gaming friendships pale in comparison to building relationships with real people, in person.
  - 8y ago
Zenst 8y ago
So true, in essence driving them into online friend interactions. Makes you wonder what life will be like for children 50 years from now, and how that would compare with today. After there was a time when making explosives was a childhood right of passage along with chemistry sets, making fires, even having a pocket knife. Today, such common activities would not end well at all, however innocent the intention. These are activities people still alive today will recall. With that, online is still in part a wild-west and new playfield, open, less restrictions compared to real life and with that, perhaps the logical outlet for teenage freedom. But even that is slowly being eroded away with the same mentalities that drove children into 1984 style parenting. With that, todays children may very well in their 50's look at the children of the time and feel how restricted and curtailed they are compared to the freedoms they enjoyed in their time. That would not surprise me, but equally, when do laws, rules, restrictions reach a zenith when no more need be added or changed! Until then, the lamentations of life march on.
- RobLach 8y ago
  50 years from now teens will have a subscription to curated experiences for them to get together in-person for while their typical interpersonal interactions will happen over the Internet where it’s nice with a relatively null marginal cost.
  - wangchungtonite 8y ago
    This is rather depressing and hopefully not true but likely is. Reminds me of the movie “Surrogates”
  - arcticfox 8y ago
    > 50 years from now This sounds like 5 years from now to me, if not today in large part
    - BurningFrog 8y ago
      It will be 5 years from now in China. The rest of us can watch and learn.
samstave 8y ago
YUP Tell me a family that says " YOU BETTER BE HOME BY SUNDOWN " Today. Regardless of neighborhood... I used to only come home for provisions and to prevent being grounded. LET THE FUCKING KIDS PLAY. FORCE them to be outside and play. Period. This is how you get nice things, like the internet.
Multicomp 8y ago
Before 9/11, kids could get away with more. Not so these days (so I'm told) Anecdote: my dad was stopped in an early 70s Mazda that was barely running and had a rusty floorboard hole so big you could stick your foot in it and flintstone down the road if you were a moron. He and a buddy loaded up 3-6 rifles and threw them in the back seat to go on down the road to shoot some skeets and/or whatever poor Cardinals were handy. No internet in those days, what are some bored teens to do? Long story short, they were pulled over, told to get their erm unique vehicle and weapons outta the LEOs county before he changed his mind. Today? Anyone getting pulled over like that would be jailed on charges of terrorism/conspiracy/something but that behavior would be considered highly irregular and put a stop to immediately. Punks like my dad would not be given a stern warning and marching orders, what police officer in their right mind would be caught on camera letting punks with several rifles go off wherever? Our societal walls of range of behavior have shrunk a lot thanks to ever-present electronic recording and unbounded fear of violent crimes. But the internet? You can have a lotta fun on the internet, whether its HN, iwastesomuchtime.com, liliputing, Netflix, etc.
- glitchc 8y ago
  I concur. The real world is zero tolerance nowadays. There doesn’t seem to be any room for second chances in real life unless your parents are wealthy.
- creato 8y ago
  > Today? Anyone getting pulled over like that would be jailed on charges of terrorism/conspiracy/something but that behavior would be considered highly irregular and put a stop to immediately. I think you have a general point that is correct, but I question this example. Sketchy looking people with firearms driving beaters are pulled over by police very regularly in the US. The only thing in this story that police might not let slide today is the hole in the floorboards. That sounds like a legitimately dangerous vehicle that probably shouldn't be on the roads. But that isn't so different from the police not letting you drive around with a broken windshield, and is not the social catastrophe you describe.
- bluedino 8y ago
  I've been pulled over in the last couple years with a handful of rifles in the back seat of my truck. On the way to/from the shooting range. Let the officer know what I had and why, they don't even bother to look back there.
SubiculumCode 8y ago
For some maybe but for my son and all his friends they just rather be on their phone. i dont understand it personally
- beenBoutIT 8y ago
  Think of them less as 'phones' and more as 'portable strip malls'. A video arcade with every game next door to porn shop with every porno next to a theater w/ every movie and there's places to meet up with friends, meet girls or buy drugs. There's a phone there if you need to make a call but it's not the main attraction.
  - SubiculumCode 8y ago
    My son said that most of the kids that actually hang out in person do so to party with drugs or alcohol. He chooses to stay home and rebuild motorcycles and play games. Its as if all the casual socializing has moved to digital.
    - beenBoutIT 8y ago
      Now that you mention it, there really isn't a digital substitute for physically tinkering with mechanical stuff or rebuilding things. Hopefully you'll give the guy some hand-me-down desktop PCs, I was under the impression that mechanically inclined kids had become extinct in the developed world.
microcolonel 8y ago
> Part of the issue, I think is that teenagers are more restricted by parents, laws, and business owners than they used to be. Part of this is the ever increasing liability (real or perceived) of being in any proximity to somebody else's kids as a business owner or member of the general public.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  So true. A friend of mine owns a shop, and she wants nothing to do with kids in her store.
honkycat 8y ago
I was kind of wild in high school. I graduated in 2008. We had a lot of parties. drinking, smoking, etc. My parents were really upset with me later in life. I have always brought up to them The fact that they were allowed to drink at 18. There were bars that would accept them. They had places to go. In 2008, me and my peers had nowhere to go. The choice is to either find a place to secretly meet, or don't congregate at all in your teens. The choice there is obvious.
WillPostForFood 8y ago
I agree. Also the obsession with school and getting into college (much more work, much less play).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kurthr 8y ago
I have to laugh at this. If one more teen tells me they don't want to leave the house or learn to drive, because they "don't need to"... I guess it's not their choice. They're infantilized by their parents so that they no longer want to leave and be independent. They just want to send pictures by phone. It's their parents fault, not society, or technology, and certainly not the choice of the children, because remember they've been infantilized! Poor things... the creek, a stick, and some friends, just aren't as interesting as they used to be. Sigh... if only we hadn't made him go camping or learn to ride a bike.
mcv 8y ago
> Part of the issue, I think is that teenagers are more restricted by parents, laws, and business owners than they used to be. This should be easy to check. If this is true, then it would be different in countries with different laws and customs. My impression (from what I read about it online) is that American parents and society tend to be much restrictive about freedom for their kids than parents elsewhere. I certainly encourage my son (9) to go out more, but he just doesn't want to. He meets his friends online. I would love to give him a 4 day train ticket when he is 12 to travel the country on his own like I did at that age, but I doubt he'll be interested. And the abundance of mobile phones just makes that sort of freedom easier, not harder. I think it's really just the addictive nature of computers and online interaction that makes meeting people in person less relevant.
renholder 8y ago
>As with younger children, parents are less likely now than in past decades to allow their teenage children to travel alone or hang out in groups without adults present. This is byproduct of the "stranger danger", everything is trying to harm you/kill you mentality. >Legal restrictions compound the issue, with curfew laws being increasingly common, as well as increased driving ages and graduated licenses. Curfews are always the double-edged reasoning sword used: It's to prevent crime and/or keep kids safe. This is, more or less, the byproduct of adults acquiescing to the government's mandates, yeah? >Finally, businesses that used to be popular hangouts for teenagers, such as shopping malls have become less welcoming, often having limits on when teenagers are allowed on the premises without a parent. Well, this is only partially true. For one, you're not considering that malls, in the classical sense as we remember them, have been pretty much replaced by strip malls (unless you're in Europe). For two, this entirely negates swathes of teens who live "in the sticks", as it were, where the nearest town (much less, city) is 10km or more away. I'd like to see a breakdown of these stats in an urban versus rural environment context and by social classes context. I'd suspect that those whom are far more disadvantaged are quite more likely to meet-up in person than their more affluent counterparts. I'd also suspect that there's correlation between the urban and rural teenagers, as well, in terms of classes, which might lend directly back to whether or not they're more or less likely to meet-up in person (given the disadvantaged, who are more apt to live in rural areas, will probably have far few incidences of access to mobile phones).
cirgue 8y ago
This doesn't just apply to teens: we as a society suck at creating social spaces outside of the home and work for anyone. Churches failed catastrophically to adapt to changing social values, civil-society type organizations have done nothing but decline for decades, and people in general have less free time to devote to building communities outside of work.

by Zak 8y ago

skywhopper 8y ago

Yes, more and more super-suburban living, combined with increasingly restrictive teen driving regulations, curfews, and fear-based media stories about abductions have ratcheted down the ability of teens to hang out together. So when technology came along to enable improved interpersonal contact, it was embraced far more rapidly than it would have been if teen freedom were as high as it was in the 70s. The graphs they show don't perfectly correlate to the trends in hanging out in person. While smartphones have definitely contributed to changes in the culture (for everyone, not just teens), it's false to pretend that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. It just as well may correlate to being bombarded by reactionary hatred from adults over things teens have grown up thinking about more openly, like more open ideas about gender and sexuality. Or perhaps from finding themselves in a culture of fear about mass shootings while again faced with an adult political establishment who does nothing about it. Or maybe just facing the reality that the grown-ups are making things worse, day by day, and that they're going to have to clean this all up after us. Smartphones have nothing to do with that.

trhway 8y ago
> that they are entirely responsible for changes in loneliness. loneliness? The amount and richness of communication like the number of participants, number of parallel communications, number of the topics and the range of opinions, etc. is most probably much higher when using smartphones then when it is subject to the limitations of physical presence. Our species brain development is basically history of social communication, and the smartphones transcending those limits of physical presence is the next step for the brain development of our species. Granted the adjustment period may have its quirks, like absence of non-verbal parts of communication - face emotions, gestures, etc. - that our brain evolved to expect and not receives anymore and thus doesn't get the associated dopamine - may feel like loneliness.
- stiglitz 8y ago
  It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.” I’m amused by this notion that “it may feel like loneliness but it’s actually the richness of our new modes of communication you are feeling! Just get used to it!”
  - trhway 8y ago
    >It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.” the tech today allows to for example easily and frequently Skype with your family, like parents, sibling, nephews residing on the other continent. A humongous improvement compare to previous modes of expensive international phone, especially when many of those participants didn't have a phone back then. What is inhuman here? It also allowed for communication like we have here on HN. Before, it would be limited to just watercooler chat with colleagues at work with very limited exposure and exploration of genuine opposite/conflicting opinions, whereis we can have a bleeding-trolling-edge blast online.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y ago
      Just because you can communicate with someone doesn’t mean you don’t feel lonely.
      - stiglitz 8y ago
        This is the most concise statement of the problem with communication technology I’ve ever read.
    - Retric 8y ago
      An in person hug with a close friend or family member is worth a lot. Phone calls have been around for a long time and still miss out on such things. Cellphones provide some benifit, but often reduce the quality of face to face interactions by distracting one or more participants.
isoskeles 8y ago
* suburbs [check] * "hatred" [check] * gun owners [check] Looks like this is an open-and-shut case. The problem is Republicans / red staters / etc.

threatofrain 8y ago

There also ought be more public spaces in general. When everything is all zoned up to be residential or commercial, there's nowhere to go without a credit card.

grawprog 8y ago
This is becoming more of a problem, at least in the city I live. Greenspaces and public parks are being replaced with condos and apartment complexes with their own walled off private courtyards and such. Parks, little groves of trees and stuff are the kinds of places we'd hang out as teenagers a lot.
- nradov 8y ago
  Which city is that? Most cities are unwilling to sell off public parks to private developers. Do you have specific examples of parks that were built over and not replaced with something accessible to the public?
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    In South Australia there was recently protests to stop a parklands getting turned in to a supermarket. I never heard what ended up happening there but the council was pushing hard to get it converted because "Shoppers are demanding more choice"
  - grawprog 8y ago
    I'd rather not be too specific, but in the lower mainland in BC. Yeah, the one that used to be just down the road from me that's about to be turned, first into a giant pit, then into a large complex of highrises.
baroffoos 8y ago
My area recently zoned a block of unused space to be used for dirt jumps and left some shovels and a wheelbarrow there. Its now an awesome place to go hang out and ride a bike. Every day when school finishes you see a group of about 10 kids riding from school to the jumps. It cost the council probably less than $1000 to turn a block of weeds in to an awesome social space.

e40 8y ago

I can tell you that as a parent of an 18 yr old, I've always encouraged him to go out and be with his friends. Since he was 12, he's much preferred to meet online in games. Whole groups of them. Whooping and hollering until the wee hours of the morning, when they can. But, I generally agree with your statement. Oh, I have a son, some it might be vastly different for daughters.

singingboyo 8y ago
I think encouragement and all-else-being-equal preference for in-person vs. online is pretty much a non-factor, short of extreme cases. As mentioned above, there's just no comparison any more. I grew up in the city and had very, very few restrictions[1] on where/when I was out from around age 15, and we still preferred online. Going out in person is expensive, not everyone had equal transit access (and no one had a consistently available car), etc. Yes, there were people who didn't join up online, who I would've loved to see more of. Meeting up with them more often would have been great, but doing it regularly just wasn't feasible - we'd see everyone at school and maybe after for 15-30 minutes while people cleared out, but that was the only regular thing. [1] Mostly of the 'tell us where and when' variety - if my parents knew roughly how to find me if needed, that was good enough.
chongli 8y ago
Video games have brought an unprecedented transformation in the way young boys spend their free time, and not all for the good. As a volunteer who tutors kids in high school (and a former "hardcore gamer") and middle school I will say, anecdotally speaking, that they've made boys more sedentary, more isolated, and less interested in school. I think the most insidious aspect of video games is that they are a success surrogate. I spent over a decade and a half playing games after dropping out of high school at age 16. What kept me going was the feeling of success and accomplishment I got from impressing my online friends in games. Now in my mid-30s, I'm an undergrad in mathematics and finally putting my life back together. I've come to realize that video games are a terrible substitute for real life accomplishments and that online gaming friendships pale in comparison to building relationships with real people, in person.
- 8y ago

Zenst 8y ago

So true, in essence driving them into online friend interactions. Makes you wonder what life will be like for children 50 years from now, and how that would compare with today. After there was a time when making explosives was a childhood right of passage along with chemistry sets, making fires, even having a pocket knife. Today, such common activities would not end well at all, however innocent the intention. These are activities people still alive today will recall. With that, online is still in part a wild-west and new playfield, open, less restrictions compared to real life and with that, perhaps the logical outlet for teenage freedom. But even that is slowly being eroded away with the same mentalities that drove children into 1984 style parenting. With that, todays children may very well in their 50's look at the children of the time and feel how restricted and curtailed they are compared to the freedoms they enjoyed in their time. That would not surprise me, but equally, when do laws, rules, restrictions reach a zenith when no more need be added or changed! Until then, the lamentations of life march on.

RobLach 8y ago
50 years from now teens will have a subscription to curated experiences for them to get together in-person for while their typical interpersonal interactions will happen over the Internet where it’s nice with a relatively null marginal cost.
- wangchungtonite 8y ago
  This is rather depressing and hopefully not true but likely is. Reminds me of the movie “Surrogates”
- arcticfox 8y ago
  > 50 years from now This sounds like 5 years from now to me, if not today in large part
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    It will be 5 years from now in China. The rest of us can watch and learn.

samstave 8y ago

YUP Tell me a family that says " YOU BETTER BE HOME BY SUNDOWN " Today. Regardless of neighborhood... I used to only come home for provisions and to prevent being grounded. LET THE FUCKING KIDS PLAY. FORCE them to be outside and play. Period. This is how you get nice things, like the internet.

Multicomp 8y ago

Before 9/11, kids could get away with more. Not so these days (so I'm told) Anecdote: my dad was stopped in an early 70s Mazda that was barely running and had a rusty floorboard hole so big you could stick your foot in it and flintstone down the road if you were a moron. He and a buddy loaded up 3-6 rifles and threw them in the back seat to go on down the road to shoot some skeets and/or whatever poor Cardinals were handy. No internet in those days, what are some bored teens to do? Long story short, they were pulled over, told to get their erm unique vehicle and weapons outta the LEOs county before he changed his mind. Today? Anyone getting pulled over like that would be jailed on charges of terrorism/conspiracy/something but that behavior would be considered highly irregular and put a stop to immediately. Punks like my dad would not be given a stern warning and marching orders, what police officer in their right mind would be caught on camera letting punks with several rifles go off wherever? Our societal walls of range of behavior have shrunk a lot thanks to ever-present electronic recording and unbounded fear of violent crimes. But the internet? You can have a lotta fun on the internet, whether its HN, iwastesomuchtime.com, liliputing, Netflix, etc.

glitchc 8y ago
I concur. The real world is zero tolerance nowadays. There doesn’t seem to be any room for second chances in real life unless your parents are wealthy.
creato 8y ago
> Today? Anyone getting pulled over like that would be jailed on charges of terrorism/conspiracy/something but that behavior would be considered highly irregular and put a stop to immediately. I think you have a general point that is correct, but I question this example. Sketchy looking people with firearms driving beaters are pulled over by police very regularly in the US. The only thing in this story that police might not let slide today is the hole in the floorboards. That sounds like a legitimately dangerous vehicle that probably shouldn't be on the roads. But that isn't so different from the police not letting you drive around with a broken windshield, and is not the social catastrophe you describe.
bluedino 8y ago
I've been pulled over in the last couple years with a handful of rifles in the back seat of my truck. On the way to/from the shooting range. Let the officer know what I had and why, they don't even bother to look back there.

SubiculumCode 8y ago

For some maybe but for my son and all his friends they just rather be on their phone. i dont understand it personally

beenBoutIT 8y ago
Think of them less as 'phones' and more as 'portable strip malls'. A video arcade with every game next door to porn shop with every porno next to a theater w/ every movie and there's places to meet up with friends, meet girls or buy drugs. There's a phone there if you need to make a call but it's not the main attraction.
- SubiculumCode 8y ago
  My son said that most of the kids that actually hang out in person do so to party with drugs or alcohol. He chooses to stay home and rebuild motorcycles and play games. Its as if all the casual socializing has moved to digital.
  - beenBoutIT 8y ago
    Now that you mention it, there really isn't a digital substitute for physically tinkering with mechanical stuff or rebuilding things. Hopefully you'll give the guy some hand-me-down desktop PCs, I was under the impression that mechanically inclined kids had become extinct in the developed world.

microcolonel 8y ago

> Part of the issue, I think is that teenagers are more restricted by parents, laws, and business owners than they used to be. Part of this is the ever increasing liability (real or perceived) of being in any proximity to somebody else's kids as a business owner or member of the general public.

skookumchuck 8y ago
So true. A friend of mine owns a shop, and she wants nothing to do with kids in her store.

honkycat 8y ago

I was kind of wild in high school. I graduated in 2008. We had a lot of parties. drinking, smoking, etc. My parents were really upset with me later in life. I have always brought up to them The fact that they were allowed to drink at 18. There were bars that would accept them. They had places to go. In 2008, me and my peers had nowhere to go. The choice is to either find a place to secretly meet, or don't congregate at all in your teens. The choice there is obvious.

WillPostForFood 8y ago

I agree. Also the obsession with school and getting into college (much more work, much less play).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kurthr 8y ago

I have to laugh at this. If one more teen tells me they don't want to leave the house or learn to drive, because they "don't need to"... I guess it's not their choice. They're infantilized by their parents so that they no longer want to leave and be independent. They just want to send pictures by phone. It's their parents fault, not society, or technology, and certainly not the choice of the children, because remember they've been infantilized! Poor things... the creek, a stick, and some friends, just aren't as interesting as they used to be. Sigh... if only we hadn't made him go camping or learn to ride a bike.

mcv 8y ago

> Part of the issue, I think is that teenagers are more restricted by parents, laws, and business owners than they used to be. This should be easy to check. If this is true, then it would be different in countries with different laws and customs. My impression (from what I read about it online) is that American parents and society tend to be much restrictive about freedom for their kids than parents elsewhere. I certainly encourage my son (9) to go out more, but he just doesn't want to. He meets his friends online. I would love to give him a 4 day train ticket when he is 12 to travel the country on his own like I did at that age, but I doubt he'll be interested. And the abundance of mobile phones just makes that sort of freedom easier, not harder. I think it's really just the addictive nature of computers and online interaction that makes meeting people in person less relevant.

renholder 8y ago

>As with younger children, parents are less likely now than in past decades to allow their teenage children to travel alone or hang out in groups without adults present. This is byproduct of the "stranger danger", everything is trying to harm you/kill you mentality. >Legal restrictions compound the issue, with curfew laws being increasingly common, as well as increased driving ages and graduated licenses. Curfews are always the double-edged reasoning sword used: It's to prevent crime and/or keep kids safe. This is, more or less, the byproduct of adults acquiescing to the government's mandates, yeah? >Finally, businesses that used to be popular hangouts for teenagers, such as shopping malls have become less welcoming, often having limits on when teenagers are allowed on the premises without a parent. Well, this is only partially true. For one, you're not considering that malls, in the classical sense as we remember them, have been pretty much replaced by strip malls (unless you're in Europe). For two, this entirely negates swathes of teens who live "in the sticks", as it were, where the nearest town (much less, city) is 10km or more away. I'd like to see a breakdown of these stats in an urban versus rural environment context and by social classes context. I'd suspect that those whom are far more disadvantaged are quite more likely to meet-up in person than their more affluent counterparts. I'd also suspect that there's correlation between the urban and rural teenagers, as well, in terms of classes, which might lend directly back to whether or not they're more or less likely to meet-up in person (given the disadvantaged, who are more apt to live in rural areas, will probably have far few incidences of access to mobile phones).

cirgue 8y ago

This doesn't just apply to teens: we as a society suck at creating social spaces outside of the home and work for anyone. Churches failed catastrophically to adapt to changing social values, civil-society type organizations have done nothing but decline for decades, and people in general have less free time to devote to building communities outside of work.