>I wonder what the right balance between the two would look like.

There ain't one that ll work for everyone (but maybe climbing trees with earth beneath them..?). And this is not specific to this particular topic.

The whole of human existence is finding the spot of right balance for themselves between opposing pair of forces. But "Freedom + Fun + mental fortitude" <-> "Safety+ big brother watching over you + less freedom" is probably a one goes on throughout ones whole life..

But the forces that wants to exploit you will happily sell you a "right balance" that is hard to objectively argue against, which happen to be one of the curse of our "modern" times.