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Comment by jwells89 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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Suburbs 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.

Tl;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...

~~~~~

As previously commented on 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...

[2]https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-ran...

[3]https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste...

[4]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-mom-accused-of-leaving-ki...

[5]https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-bans-curfews-malls-them...

I see kids outside playing in the street and in yards and in my neighborhood park all the time.

What suburbs are you folks choosing to live in?

also some of your examples, like the CNN article about Maryland, seem like they may be targeted harassment from CPS against parents who they dislike for other reasons. the article is also nine years old -- why didn't you post something about how that story ended?

> In June 2015, Maryland officials clarified their views about children playing or walking alone outdoors in a new policy directive, saying Child Protective Services should not be involved in such cases unless children have been harmed or face a substantial risk of harm.[3]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meitiv_incidents

The investigation went nowhere. So who cares? this is an isolated incident that caused a set of parents to have a single bad encounter with police. surely that's a problem with police more than anything?

I don't understand the motivation for posting misleading links like this

When I was a kid just a few decades ago there were several things within my available area like arcades, mini golf, a small hill to play on, etc. today in that same area there is zero kids friendly entertainment except a theater that’s too expensive and the small hill was closed to the public by the HOA for legal reasons. Where are the kids supposed to go? It’s not an imaginary thing happening, 3rd spaces are drying up for kids and adults alike.

What? Literally anywhere outside - are you saying most kids back then hung out at arcades and minigolf regularly in their free time? We couldn't afford that. I remember playing at the hill you're talking about - or a park - or just throwing a ball against a wall with friends when I was in the city.

Also who cares if the HOA shut down that hill? Are they patrolling it? Why would the kids care about that?

Did you read where I said the outside has been closed for legal reasons? In my area that was the only outside park available. It has a fence around it and are you just suggesting kids go get themselves arrested or perhaps worse for trespassing? I guess all is well as long as kids have a wall to bounce a ball off of!

The outside is more than that park or hill that was closed. Unless it's illegal just for kids to be outside, in which case I'd say yea that's unfortunate - but it's not the norm.

Also arrested or worse for trespassing on a hill? Please. The worse they'd get is a lecture by the cops the first time.

Where I grew up the outside is either a a park or a vast desert with pavement everywhere and heat that literally kills several people a year. Kids had the park or nothing, but now it’s literally nothing in that area. It’s sad that people like you can’t believe the actual lived experience of someone else, as if your life is how everyone experiences the world and growing up. Not every urban area is the same. Not every rural area is the same.

Please don't misrepresent what I said. I didn't say you were lying - just that it's not the norm. Most people do not live in a situation where it's a desert with pavement everywhere with deadly heat.

A huge number do live in those conditions, some live where it’s deadly cold, etc. The point is, telling kids just to go outside isn’t reasonable for everyone and third spaces are dying.

Then the kids risk having the cops called, and the parents risk having CPS called from a neighborhood busybody.

That's exactly the problem - even if the kids AND the parents are willing, the wider society makes it such an enormous hassle and risk. And there's no guarantee you'd win a legal case, especially if you can't afford to.

[1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/05/mom...

[2]https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-ran...

[3]https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste...

[4]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-mom-accused-of-leaving-ki...

I was replying to your other post, but I guess I can do it here... I would argue that there's a reason those articles were written about the incidents. They don't happen as often so when they do, news articles like to highlight the incidents and pretend that they're the norm. It's not.

You posted 3 incidents of it happening - do you know how many kids are out there with parents _not_ getting harassed? A lot more I would bet.

I've seen stories like this many times, sometimes accompanied by comments from police warning parents not to abandon their children. The problem is so bad that there's a whole movement dedicated to trying to stop or reverse this trend that is making (or has already made) it culturally unacceptable to let kids go anywhere or do anything https://www.freerangekids.com/

To turn your argument on it's head: are these types of articles rare because so many kids are out and about un-hassled, or are they so rare because so many people don't let their kids out enough for it to be a common occurrence?

I don't know if one group or another is in the _majority_ or not. I'm also not arguing it isn't still possible for some areas - an area I live some miles away from still has kids out and about - but for a great many people, it's an issue that exists, and it's not an issue that they can easily solve on their own without moving.

> Then the kids risk having the cops called

This examples are fairly extreme, but people calling the police isn’t a new thing.

A friend and I dug a hole that was pretty deep at the beach - police called.

We made too much noise late one night - police called.

We rode our bikes in places we weren’t allowed - police called.

We explored the haunted house - police called.

One kid pointed a cigarette lighter that looked like a gun and a helicopter - police called.

All in the ’90s. Children going too far and irritated neighbours have always been a thing.

Digging holes at the beach is very dangerous. Collapsing wet sand can get in the lungs surprisingly easily, and peope can sufficant long before getting it out.

The rule is no deeper than the knees of the smallest person who may be involved.

I'm not saying the police should be called for every hole. Just that it is a real risk. And generally I'd agree that people overreacting (sometimes myself included) is a tale as old as time.

Oh 100% we were idiots.

The hole was pretty deep - we could only just get out with an extended step ladder.

> The rule is no deeper than the knees of the smallest person who may be involved.

Absolutely not. You are welcome to apply it to your family but don't come applying it anywhere near mine.

I am so utterly bored of absolute risk aversion being preached on every street corner. I'll take some risk and the constituent rewards for me an mine, thanks.

where do you live that there are no parks in your suburb? mine is chock full of them, there's a park every couple blocks. why has your HOA closed a hill, and have you gone to meetings to advocate for reopening it?

I don’t live there anymore.

The key thing that died pre-smartphone was kids leaving the house and playing outside. Game consoles, cable TV, and computers all probably contributed to that, but so did the great crime paranoia of the 80s/90s.

Hard to do that when you're fighting against billions of dollars and the world's best engineers who are doing everything they can to keep you as a daily active user!

Fair point - it's definitely not easy

Maybe I've just grown to be a cynical ass, but I don't think it's just kids, even me and my adult friends lament how it feels like there's really not that much interesting to do outside of the home, and I am far from attached to a smartphone; often times I don't even bring a phone with me when I leave the house. The vast majority of the businesses in these parts are places where you either eat, or buy groceries. There used to be video rental stores everywhere, now they're rare. The malls are dead, the arcades are gone, the electronics stores are wiped out. When I was in California, I watched Fry's completely die over the course of a few years; I wonder how many nerds met lifelong friends just kind of hanging around places like Fry's.

Political polarization has harmed social interaction in the meatspace, too. I really generally don't mind or think about political affiliation if it's not relevant, but if I walk into a building and it either feels like I've entered a Trump rally or it's plastered in performative wokeness crap, I'm just going to want to leave, because politics aside, at best it just feels cliché and begging for negative attention, and I'm probably going to find the kind of people who like this environment to be insufferable.

Nowadays, I surprisingly often just see groups of kids aimlessly wandering grocery stores at night, seemingly not interested in actually buying anything, just kind of walking and talking. If it's because they don't know what else to do, I sincerely can't blame them, I don't even know what to do.

> Maybe people should detox and learn to live life without constantly needing something interesting.

Yeah I think this is it and not the kids should be outdoors argument. If I were a kid today I’d be on my device all of the time. When I was young I sat around watching Night Court, Three’s Company, and Saved By the Bell reruns in syndication. I would have loved access to Roblox, Minecraft, and YouTube. I could have been outside (and sometimes I was) but I usually preferred to just veg out. Now my kids enjoy hanging around on their iPads and have a lot more options of things to do on those devices but they can’t just sit and stare at a wall like I did when I was young.

A 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.

It sounds like the equivalent of driving for Uber while working a part time job, but with nicer scenery.

Nice 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.

So the question is what formed this person in this way, private schooling, right teachers at a public school, parents?

I 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.

Well 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.

My 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.

> 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.

Yes because your suburb is representative of every suburb obviously. You’ve solved it!

I 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.

Along the same lines, didn't the rise of mosquito tones to discourage kids from being in malls start in the early 2000s?

"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.

How 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.

Actually, on reflection, I also spent a lot of time at the local tabletop gaming store, a "third space" that seems to be gone now.

I'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.

This a worldwide phenomenon, nothing to do with American suburbs.

In the same sense that the epicenter has "nothing to do" with an earthquake yeah.

How so? In Europe there seems to be plenty of stuff fot kids to spend unstructured time.

In Europe, smartphones are a problem for kids too.

And yet European kids use their phone as much as American ones.

Im 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

Parents get in trouble for letting their kids get hurt these days. And healthcare ain’t cheap either.

It 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.

Oh 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.

No 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.

By “a long time”, I’m sure GP meant “a lot longer than smartphones,” given the topic of this thread

You might want to take another look at the calendar. WWII came to an end a long time ago.

I 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.

They 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?

You're an LLM, right?

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