this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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I understand that it is harder to bond to someone who isn't immediately digitally available. I understand that "kids these days! " do their social stuff online, but at the same time, they seem to have largely lost all skill at interacting with real humans of slight or no aquaintence.
It is easy to make sarcastic comments on your phone about how stupid this or that is. The sterotypical basement dweller can snark all day. What takes social skill is actively engaging with people you don't care about and finding common ground.
Yes, digital people track some of this on facebook and such, but in real life: in which community groups do they participate? Do they know what their neighbors do and what they like beyond snapshots of events? That is: yeah, they saw that pic of that cookout, but did they know that he volunteer teaches English as a second language Tuesday and Thursday at the library? When was the last time they went into a neighbor's home (or had one visit theirs) to share a cup of coffee and complain about that road that needs fixing and who to push about it?
Edited to replace 'you' with 'they' so there'd be no confusion that I mean multiple 'you' readers rather than a single person.
Do you realize how hostile the outside is to non-adults? Like genuinely I've seen people call the cops because there was a kid riding a bike unsuprivized in a suburban neighborhood. Malls are dying and there's nothing to replace them as a meeting spot.
This isn't even getting into the seeming requirement to spend what feels like 100$ to see a movie now or any of the other stereotypical hang outs. Or how many people have parents that simply do not have time to drive them places.
I'm genuinely interested in your response because I genuinely think the world has become actively hostile to kids being kids.
You still have local second-run theaters where those still exist, plus parks and playgrounds where those haven't been ruined yet, and depending on where you live, there may even be various art/craft places to hang out at, splatter-painting places included in that, and some of the nicer parts of the country even have interactive museums that are kid-friendly (as in actually interactive, like the patrons can actually interact and play with the exhibits there).
Aside from those, yeah, there isn't much for kids to do.
sarcasm, but also not really if you're in a *really* low-income part of the country where there really *isn't* anything to do, think of places like Appalachia for a good example of that extreme
You're still ignoring the core problem in that children can't do any of those things by themselves anymore and all of them cost some amount of money with the exception of playgrounds and parks. Growing up the closest one to me was about a 30 minute drive so I would never be able to get myself there.