> Young people can't go anywhere because they can't afford a car because all their money goes to rent. Even if they WANTED to go somewhere, there isn't anywhere to go because car dependent infrastructure has killed all the places that young people used to hang out.
This is a big one IMO.
We moved to a Northern NJ suburb in the late-90s. However, NYC Metro suburbs are very different from the "suburbs" that are a dime a dozen here in Texas.
The town was small --- about a mile in square area. You could walk pretty much everywhere within it, even though some points were far. Almost every street had a sidewalk that was maintained by the city. Since the city followed a grid system, routes from one persons house to another could be done on foot. I spent a lot of time walking in my teens because of this, though not being allowed to have a car played a big part in that.
(Walking a lot comes naturally to me because of this; in fact, a big reason why I hated living in these suburbs was because of how difficult it was to walk somewhere interesting instead of "mandatory walking" around a fake pond.)
By comparison, suburbs in Texas (or at least here in Houston, and definitely in Dallas) are gigantic. You could walk for miles before you hit literally anything. The nearest business in the suburb we lived in when we moved here was 1.5 miles away on foot. The first 0.5 mile within the neighborhood was fine since the neighborhood had nicely curated sidewalks. Once you left the neighborhood though, you were walking on the 45mph-rated streets that people definitely drive 15+ over on (usually on their phones, since we're on the subject).
None of these neighborhoods have a grid system, so going from one house to another within the neighborhood could take a shocking amount of time despite being a short distance away. This design is done on purpose to "increase safety," which is at best farcical considering how unbelievably spread out these communities are and how distant they are from anything.
I hope the next generation of parents opt for smaller, more walkable towns with smaller houses and proper city centers instead of gigantic, cavernous and mostly empty sets of endless houses. I think this can be done while also remaining affordable, but we, collectively, have to want it.
Otherwise, yeah, the screens will "win" because the Internet is cheap, immediate and has basically anything you can think of.