4 ms·
Maybe, if they’re provided with interesting things to do and fun places to go. Those both started drying up several years before smartphones entered the picture
by jwells89 3y ago
Maybe, if they’re provided with interesting things to do and fun places to go. Those both started drying up several years before smartphones entered the picture, with suburban areas becoming particularly desert-like. It shouldn’t be a surprise that phones filled the gap.
- HatchedLake721 3y agoThis a worldwide phenomenon, nothing to do with American suburbs.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoIn the same sense that the epicenter has "nothing to do" with an earthquake yeah.
- mglz 3y agoHow so? In Europe there seems to be plenty of stuff fot kids to spend unstructured time.
- markus92 3y agoIn Europe, smartphones are a problem for kids too.
- dudul 3y agoAnd yet European kids use their phone as much as American ones.
- alexalx666 3y agoIm not sure there is a direct correlation but US urban areas were mostly planned for cars and in the EU urban enviroments inherited their layout from the times before cars so they are more sucseptable to urban planning that is more humane
- crotchfire 3y agoOh please with the karma-farming. Suburbs, for better or for worse, have been around for a long time. They cannot explain the massive decline in Generation Z's mental health compared to its predecessors. PS, next time try to link to housing costs -- that one gets better karma yield. Bonus points if you can somehow denigrate cryptocurrencies while you're at it.
- treyd 3y agoNo they haven't! Suburbs as we know them developed as a result of land made available cheaply post-WWII and the automobile enabling the sprawl. Sure there's a bit of a spectrum of how badly developed a particular suburb can be, but without car dependency they could not exist and don't make any sense.
- yowzadave 3y agoBy “a long time”, I’m sure GP meant “a lot longer than smartphones,” given the topic of this thread
- randomdata 3y agoYou might want to take another look at the calendar. WWII came to an end a long time ago.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoI think they're saying post WW2 was just a turning point that coincided with auto culture. Eisenhower saw the highways in Europe and worked to bring similar infrastructure in the US. This facilitated more people living outside the city one worked in. Hence the sprawl and unwalkable suburbs.
- randomdata 3y agoThey said "No they haven't!" in response to "Suburbs, for better or for worse, have been around for a long time." But if they haven't been around for a long time, then you have to accept that WWII was a recent event. On the geological scale, okay sure, but on the human scale it happened a long, long time ago. We've raised several generations in the meantime. It does not begin to explain why this is apparently only affecting a group of people born within a narrow set of comparatively recent years. > This facilitated more people living outside the city Most people lived rurally prior to WWII. And of those who lived in urban areas, most were in urban areas of the small town sort. If we accept the lack of excitement suggestion, what was so exciting about said rural and small town areas? Why can't people today engage in the same excitement?
- speff 3y agoSuburbs have been a thing decades longer than smartphones. With the exception of helicopter parenting, nothing's changed with options available for kids to play outside. Smartphones altered the meaning of "interesting things to do" to exclude everything that doesn't give a constant dopamine hit every couple seconds. Maybe people should detox and learn to live life without constantly needing something interesting.
- bilegeek 3y agoTl;dr: Suburbs have changed even since the 80's, primarily sociologically but also architecturally, and combined with wider changes in overall culture has made alternatives to the internet less and less practical. Another jumping-off point: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/05/utah-governor-absolutely-positive-that-social-media-harms-kids-despite-study-after-study-after-study-after-study-after-study-saying-hes-wrong/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/05/utah-governor-absolutely... ~~~~~ As previously commented on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39259629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39259629 >let yourself spend less time and energy on your kids >The fact of the matter is the world is a safer >and more prosperous place than ever before. Sadly, it's often not even a matter of safety from "danger", but safety from the law. Getting CPS called on you[1][2], or getting arrested[3][4] as a parent is not good, even if you are fortunate enough to win. Then there's the whole angle of disappearing third places, lack of places that can be reasonably visited without driving privileges, nobody's outside because of all of the above so there's nobody to "hang out" or "play" with, desire to funnel kids/teens into more "productive" activities like academics and sports (depending on affluence and interest, this isn't AS bad as the above points), places outright banning[5] young people, etc etc. [1]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... [2]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... [3]https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste... [4]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-mom-accused-of-leaving-kids-at-food-court-during-job-interview/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-mom-accused-of-leaving-ki... [5]https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-bans-curfews-malls-theme-parks-chick-fil-a-2023-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-bans-curfews-malls-them...
- Solvency 3y agoA few years ago I visited the U.s. virgin islands for a work trip with a client. The clients nephew is 23 and lives and grew up there. He's a marine biologist and a spear fisher. He makes money ferrying people between the various islands on a small dingy boat and showing them fishing spots. He works in a small lab besides that. He's tan and in great shape and has a random beater phone. He watched almost no TV or movies. He knows a ton of interesting people. His life is just out among the islands and water and people and its richer than anything i ever experienced. It's one of the most profound moments when I was like THIS is what the dream you'd have of what your kid could do sans social media and smartphones. It's a shame every kid doesn't have the same access and opportunities though because of how we're building our "modern" society.
- silverquiet 3y agoIt sounds like the equivalent of driving for Uber while working a part time job, but with nicer scenery.
- navane 3y agoNice scenery could be all we're lacking. Isn't an aircraft pilot just a bus driver with nicer scenery? A tenured professor a teacher with nicer scenery? A corner office an office garden with nicer scenery? What makes a house expensive, the scenery. In the end we're all dwelling in the same way, if I could do that with mountain-ocean view, that'd be great.
- alexalx666 3y agoSo the question is what formed this person in this way, private schooling, right teachers at a public school, parents?
- dylan604 3y agoI grew up well before the internet and devices. Atari 2600 was the hotness. I grew up well outside suburbia out in the boonies. We were never bored as you seem to imply kids will be. The was nothing to dry up, there just was never anything there. Outside. That's where most of my time was spent.
- logicprog 3y agoWell that's just the problem isn't it? The "outside" you're probably thinking of doesn't really exist anymore in a lot of places either. Suburbia especially is a hellscape of empty flat crab grass lawns and sidewalks and tarmac. There isn't any fun nature to explore. If there had been where I had grown up I would have loved it.
- jwells89 3y agoMy childhood was in a rural area the US known for lagging behind other parts by a decade or more, so I can relate even though that was in the 90s. Lots of quiet evenings doodling away in a notebook, getting lost in my imagination, pondering something, or goofing around in the yard, because there wasn’t that much else to do. Two OTA TV channels which frequently weren’t airing anything interesting, VHS tapes that’d been watched many tens of times over, no consoles, and a family computer that my parents were usually using. Boredom didn’t bother me too much back then, but I doubt I’d be able to say the same if I were a child today… personal entertainment is simply too easy and ubiquitous to deny. Probably would’ve also had a very different experience had I grown up in a city instead.
- tempsy 3y agoI'm more convinced that getting kids involved in team sports is probably the best way to go, and honestly those are things are that are more common/practical in suburban environments than urban ones because sports facilities are cheaper to build and more plentiful. Can't be holding a cellphone while practicing a sport, requires effort and concentration, and face to face socializing.
- jjav 3y ago> with suburban areas becoming particularly desert-like. It shouldn’t be a surprise that phones filled the gap. The suburbs I remember from the 70s were just the same as the suburb where my child is growing today. So that's not it at all.
- theshackleford 3y agoYes because your suburb is representative of every suburb obviously. You’ve solved it!
- dec0dedab0de 3y agoI think you’re on to something. My local mall doesn’t allow teenagers anymore, and the skating rink shut down during the pandemic. the only arcades are bars that turn 21+ at like 7 or 8 pm.
- Izkata 3y agoAlong the same lines, didn't the rise of mosquito tones to discourage kids from being in malls start in the early 2000s?
- givemeethekeys 3y agoParents get in trouble for letting their kids get hurt these days. And healthcare ain’t cheap either.
- dabbledash 3y agoHow I spent my suburban middle school years - walking around - hanging out at friends' houses. (Video games and tv) - going to the movies - lots and lots of books May not be the most exciting life, but all the prereqs still exist.
- dabbledash 3y agoActually, on reflection, I also spent a lot of time at the local tabletop gaming store, a "third space" that seems to be gone now.
- barrysteve 3y agoIt was much more fun playing outside in nature when you could grow your knowledge of life and consciousness by playing with friends. Now that has taken a back seat. Growing your consciousness by observing videos, learning and playing games is the norm for kids. Simply knowing that you could be expanding your mind tenfold on a phone, while you're outside throwing sticks and climbing trees, kind of ruins the fun of exploring outdoors.
- rsync 3y ago"Maybe, if they’re provided with interesting things to do and fun places to go." I think this is the wrong impulse. Instead, we should (feign) indifference to their interest and boredom and allow them to invent their own outlets for joy and happiness. It is magical to watch this occur - and it does occur. We as 21st century parents seem to find the interim period of angst and protest impossible to bear ... but we should bear it because it is surprisingly short lived.