3 ms·

Sadly, I grew up in the era of 'Stranger Danger' (this may be a uniquely UK thing, I'm not sure) which advocated entirely the opposite and, imo, discouraged an

Sadly, I grew up in the era of 'Stranger Danger' (this may be a uniquely UK thing, I'm not sure) which advocated entirely the opposite and, imo, discouraged an entire generation from interacting with those they didn't already know.

kzrdude 4y ago
I also thought this kind of development was specific to only my country, but it's an almost global trend. Parents keep their kids closer (the last few decades compared with those before), under more supervision, are more suspicious of strangers, and so on, in general. Moving into denser cities is also a global trend, and probably one that's correlated with it.
torstenvl 4y ago
Safetyism is a broad cultural trend in the West, theorized to stem in part from the rise of sensationalist reporting on television in the 70s-80s. The result is that the average parent is more likely not to leave even a younger teenager unsupervised than to address more mundane but realistic dangers like ensuring CO detectors have good batteries or using car seats and booster seats until somewhere between age 9 and age 12.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  Danger from people you don't know has a much broader cultural context, though. For some of my relatives in China, even making eye contact with strangers is unthinkable. You don't look at strangers, you don't say "hi" to them, nothing. Growing up, walking past someone on the street, nodding, and smiling, even if I didn't know them, was normal. As population density goes up, that kind of policy becomes less workable, though. People try to insulate themselves from being psychologically overwhelmed from the sheer number of other people right there so they practice ignoring them. That's not true everywhere. In good neighborhoods in the newer stretches of Bengalaru (Bangalore), for example, it doesn't quite work that way. People talk. They figure out how to solve problems together, they move on. Your network is your wealth. My wife would probably have a heart attack in that atmosphere, though.

kzrdude 4y ago

I also thought this kind of development was specific to only my country, but it's an almost global trend. Parents keep their kids closer (the last few decades compared with those before), under more supervision, are more suspicious of strangers, and so on, in general. Moving into denser cities is also a global trend, and probably one that's correlated with it.

torstenvl 4y ago

Safetyism is a broad cultural trend in the West, theorized to stem in part from the rise of sensationalist reporting on television in the 70s-80s. The result is that the average parent is more likely not to leave even a younger teenager unsupervised than to address more mundane but realistic dangers like ensuring CO detectors have good batteries or using car seats and booster seats until somewhere between age 9 and age 12.

slowmovintarget 4y ago
Danger from people you don't know has a much broader cultural context, though. For some of my relatives in China, even making eye contact with strangers is unthinkable. You don't look at strangers, you don't say "hi" to them, nothing. Growing up, walking past someone on the street, nodding, and smiling, even if I didn't know them, was normal. As population density goes up, that kind of policy becomes less workable, though. People try to insulate themselves from being psychologically overwhelmed from the sheer number of other people right there so they practice ignoring them. That's not true everywhere. In good neighborhoods in the newer stretches of Bengalaru (Bangalore), for example, it doesn't quite work that way. People talk. They figure out how to solve problems together, they move on. Your network is your wealth. My wife would probably have a heart attack in that atmosphere, though.