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Comment by speff | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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

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.

> 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.

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.

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

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