The real world for kids is awful, too. They are constantly bored and there is no place to just go and play because the real world was not built for dreaming and play, but for commerce and every square inch of the planet needs to be either a parking lot or a business. And that's even if they could go places, but they can't because everything is a car ride away and they can't drive. They can't even get on a bicycle and go exploring because one of their miserable nosey neighbors will call the police or Child Protective Services if they see an unaccompanied kid roaming around. From the moment they enter school, they're told that the world is coming to an end due to climate change, and they're all gonna die.
And the world is awful for young adults/old teenagers. There are almost no jobs available that pay even close to what it would take to barely move out of their parents' basements. They know that they will never own a home, nor have any kind of financial security, and that the world is deliberately set up to allow a handful of people to sponge up everything, so why even bother? And if they do manage to get a job that lets them barely pay rent, they had to move to an unfamiliar, lonely city to take the job, leaving all their friends behind.
It's no wonder everyone is addicted to their phones and the fantasy worlds of games and social media. The real world is pretty awful for a lot of people.