7 ms·

Kids are so less adventurous nowadays. I'm not sure about teenagers, but for college students, it's more obvious. I believe it's because society is less forgiv

Kids are so less adventurous nowadays. I'm not sure about teenagers, but for college students, it's more obvious. I believe it's because society is less forgiving - young people spent a ton of money or taking loans, work hard at school, cannot find jobs that are not stressful and underpaid. Or couldn't even find jobs at all. One step wrong and they would be screwed.

Igelau 7y ago
It's not just that, but we became a culture where your neighbors will call the police if you let your kids walk around the block alone. The Baby Boomers criminalized and curtailed almost all the risk that made childhood and teenage years adventerous. I got to watch things getting systematically removed as I grew up. My brother is a few years older than me and we went through the same junior high. His experience including shop class, wrestling in gym, and dissecting a frog. Mine didn't.
MivLives 7y ago
It's harder to be forgotten. One mistake can follow you for the rest of your life, via social media, via background checks.
- tachyonbeam 7y ago
  I think it's also definitely the case that social media increases peer pressure to conform. If you say the wrong thing, have the wrong political opinion, you will be publicly shamed.
- krebs_liebhaber 7y ago
  At least in Orwell's 1984 the Tele-Screens were imposed by an external authority. The present day is much worse than he could have ever imagined. Everyone over the age of 13 carries a high-quality camera with them at every waking moment; in fact, they regularly shell out for higher-quality cameras as technology improves! Not only that, but they've been operant-conditioned to take photos and videos of any interesting events and send it to the central servers of spy companies like Facebook and Snap, where they will be stored permanently for the foreseeable future - and they do this all for free!
softwaredoug 7y ago
As a parent, I've noticed the biggest problem that prevents "free range" kids is other adults without kids. Those of us WITH kids relish getting the kids outside and out of our hair. But those without kids frequently are calling the parents to complain our children are roaming the neighborhood, perhaps on their property. Or they fear these kids will create problems. Usually, however, they're just kids being kids. Going on adventures & learning to resolve their own problems without a grownup hovering over them. I think the issue is the proportion of adults with kids has declined, so parents run into non-parents all the time that don't enjoy seeing kids roaming around. Whereas when I was a kid, most adults were more understanding.
- pier25 7y ago
  I don't know. In Spain kids are indeed less adventurous than my generation, specially in the cities, but I've never heard about someone complaining about kids roaming. I think the number of alone activities kids can do these days to keep themselves entertained (videogames, internet, netflix, etc) is a much more influential factor.
  - givehimagun 7y ago
    I agree - as someone without kids in a neighborhood full of kids. In my decade of living in the burbs, I have not seen 2 children playing/going somewhere/interacting without an adult around once. I think most parents don't leave their children unsupervised AND there is a very easy alternative (videogames, internet, netflix, etc - as you mentioned).
  - Izkata 7y ago
    > but I've never heard about someone complaining about kids roaming. It's a thing: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/05/mom-parenting-police-free-range-neglect-children-column/1156144002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/05/mom... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/14/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25754193/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/14/parent... https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-range-parenting-family-under-investigation-again/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-ran... https://nypost.com/2015/04/13/cops-coerced-our-kids-into-squad-car-free-range-parents/ https://nypost.com/2015/04/13/cops-coerced-our-kids-into-squ... Apparently this is somehow seen as neglect, a type of child abuse, by others.
FabHK 7y ago
I think kids have been less adventurous than their parents for quite a while, and needless to say the correct level of adventurousness was in my generation. :-P
idoby 7y ago
There are now highways where there used to be fields, rivers or just empty land. I mean this as much in a figurative sense as in a literal one.

Igelau 7y ago

It's not just that, but we became a culture where your neighbors will call the police if you let your kids walk around the block alone. The Baby Boomers criminalized and curtailed almost all the risk that made childhood and teenage years adventerous. I got to watch things getting systematically removed as I grew up. My brother is a few years older than me and we went through the same junior high. His experience including shop class, wrestling in gym, and dissecting a frog. Mine didn't.

MivLives 7y ago

It's harder to be forgotten. One mistake can follow you for the rest of your life, via social media, via background checks.

tachyonbeam 7y ago
I think it's also definitely the case that social media increases peer pressure to conform. If you say the wrong thing, have the wrong political opinion, you will be publicly shamed.
krebs_liebhaber 7y ago
At least in Orwell's 1984 the Tele-Screens were imposed by an external authority. The present day is much worse than he could have ever imagined. Everyone over the age of 13 carries a high-quality camera with them at every waking moment; in fact, they regularly shell out for higher-quality cameras as technology improves! Not only that, but they've been operant-conditioned to take photos and videos of any interesting events and send it to the central servers of spy companies like Facebook and Snap, where they will be stored permanently for the foreseeable future - and they do this all for free!

softwaredoug 7y ago

As a parent, I've noticed the biggest problem that prevents "free range" kids is other adults without kids. Those of us WITH kids relish getting the kids outside and out of our hair. But those without kids frequently are calling the parents to complain our children are roaming the neighborhood, perhaps on their property. Or they fear these kids will create problems. Usually, however, they're just kids being kids. Going on adventures & learning to resolve their own problems without a grownup hovering over them. I think the issue is the proportion of adults with kids has declined, so parents run into non-parents all the time that don't enjoy seeing kids roaming around. Whereas when I was a kid, most adults were more understanding.

pier25 7y ago
I don't know. In Spain kids are indeed less adventurous than my generation, specially in the cities, but I've never heard about someone complaining about kids roaming. I think the number of alone activities kids can do these days to keep themselves entertained (videogames, internet, netflix, etc) is a much more influential factor.
- givehimagun 7y ago
  I agree - as someone without kids in a neighborhood full of kids. In my decade of living in the burbs, I have not seen 2 children playing/going somewhere/interacting without an adult around once. I think most parents don't leave their children unsupervised AND there is a very easy alternative (videogames, internet, netflix, etc - as you mentioned).
- Izkata 7y ago
  > but I've never heard about someone complaining about kids roaming. It's a thing: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/05/mom-parenting-police-free-range-neglect-children-column/1156144002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/05/mom... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/14/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25754193/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/14/parent... https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-range-parenting-family-under-investigation-again/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-ran... https://nypost.com/2015/04/13/cops-coerced-our-kids-into-squad-car-free-range-parents/ https://nypost.com/2015/04/13/cops-coerced-our-kids-into-squ... Apparently this is somehow seen as neglect, a type of child abuse, by others.

FabHK 7y ago

I think kids have been less adventurous than their parents for quite a while, and needless to say the correct level of adventurousness was in my generation. :-P

idoby 7y ago

There are now highways where there used to be fields, rivers or just empty land. I mean this as much in a figurative sense as in a literal one.