I wonder if one of the biggest drivers of loneliness isn't necessarily that kids are spending more time on their phones or even that they have less face time wi

I wonder if one of the biggest drivers of loneliness isn't necessarily that kids are spending more time on their phones or even that they have less face time with their friends, but that their social media can tell them more about what their friends are doing when they aren't together. First, everyone knows people curate their social media presence so that they look cool and that they are doing fun things. Second, if two of my friends in my group of friends hung out, I wouldn't necessarily know about it until after the fact. I wouldn't be able to see fun images of my friends or even people who were like the "cool kids" hanging out. Essentially, that limited the amount of FOMO you could experience because you just didn't have that ability. I definitely think some of it also has to do with the level of control and protection we try to place on kids as well. It's just probably discouraging to kids or, worse, they sense their parent's fear that something will happen to them so they become afraid and ultimately pull themselves back from social interactions. I wonder if kids also tend to feel more lonely because parents have also increased their smartphone usage. When I go out to restaurants, I feel like I am more likely to see entire families on their phones sitting around the table instead of talking with one another. That can't help either.