That’s a factor, but there are other reasons. Saving money, more online entertainment, the general shift of things done in person are now online, and the dark patterns that keep us tied there.
I know a lot of people in the US, and especially Canada, who've stopped going to restaurants for example. They now cost too much, the food is often mediocre or even outright bad, the service is often terrible, parking can be an issue in some cities, and it's generally a miserable experience. Cooking at home, even if takes more effort, ends up being comparatively more enjoyable.
That's also the case for movies, concerts, sporting events, exhibitions, and tourist venues. The tickets cost a lot relative to the enjoyment that's provided, and the pricing of food and drinks at such events can be astronomical. It has just become prohibitively expensive, especially for families, in addition to the other inconveniences (such as travel and parking) that can be associated with such events.
Even something as simple as going to a beach or a lake has become an awful experience in Canada. A problem at Canadian beaches has been foreigners defecating in the sand, rather than using the proper washroom facilities. Even when that isn't happening, such places can be quite crowded and nowhere near as fun as they were in the past when they were quieter.
I certainly can't blame people for not wanting to subject themselves to unpleasant experiences like those.
Restaurants are too expensive, so everyone eats at home. And yet it's still hard to get reservations at many places and drive through lines circle the buildings.
Its stupid expensive to go to a Disney park these days. Think those places are empty?
On the flip side, I've noticed that restaurants with great quality almost invariably have low turnover and those are the one I keep coming back to.
The options are also not cooking at home vs going to a restaurant. There is now food delivery. It used to be that the only way to get ribs was to make them yourself or go to a restaurant and order them. But now a majority of my rib consumption is via Uber Eats.
Movies used to be either in a theatre or a grainy home screen. The home screen is no longer grainy. Same with sports. You have to want the atmosphere to go to a game now.
Beaches being crowded indicates use, so I wouldn't put it into the category of restaurant visits, movies, and sports, which are all declining categories overall.
Yes, and it's actually better than going to a theater in most ways:
1) You can pause and go to the bathroom when you need to, instead of holding it and being miserable and then rushing to the crowded bathroom when the credits roll, or going during the movie and missing important plot points.
2) You can rewind it if you missed some important dialog.
3) You can turn on subtitling so you can understand all the dialog, in case your hearing isn't great, or the actors are mumbling as is common these days.
4) You can eat/drink whatever you want, and it costs only whatever your grocery store charges.
5) You can pause the movie and talk to your friend/SO about it.
6) You can put your feet all the way up with your recliner.
7) You can adjust the volume to whatever you like, so you don't have to listen to it deafeningly-loud as is common in theaters now.
8) You don't have to deal with some stupid stranger using their phone or talking loudly to their friends, or having their head block your view.
9) You don't have to worry about a retired cop shooting you.
Movie theaters are probably going the way of the dodo. That doesn’t mean all outside activities are doomed. There’s just a higher bar. Entrepreneurs will have to focus on experiences people can’t get at home and make them accessible and affordable.
Now that earns a call from CPS and the parents are arrested and the kid may end up in a foster home which are common sources of abuse. So the family just stays home if the kids won't/can't be taken.
I have relatives who work for CPS and if anything they are extremely lenient. And even if they take kids (when both parents can’t take care of the kid for example if they’re both heroin addicts) CPS will try to place with a relative, even out of state.
Also, the most common source of child abuse is a family member, which unfortunately is a common reason for CPS to get involved.
Of course the genius is the kidnappers seal most these cases so their relatives can gaslight you about what happened, which is the icing on the cake.
The plural of op-ed anecdotes is not objective data, but I can give you some jumping-off points:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/05/mom...
https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-ran...
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-mom-accused-of-leaving-ki...
https://www.businessinsider.com/teen-bans-curfews-malls-them...
https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...
https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/sb0065.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/well/family/utah-passes-f...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-coddling-of-the-american-p...
By design they've made such studies effectively impossible from the outside. You don't even get a jury. So we're left with the odd anecdotes (as exemplified below in sister comment)from those who weren't successfully intimidated.
And that's the beauty. They can knowingly and willingly intimidate parents while screeching "but muh data, you can't prove it" laughing all along by design they've hidden the data in the shadows from inspection.
> That study was based on an analysis of [...] the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, which provides information on removals of children from home, terminations of parental rights and adoptions.
From there with a little searching I find this graph [1] showing various metrics from 2013-2022, which don't appear to show any freakish growth over that decade.
[0] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-analyzed-child-wel...
[1] https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/report/trends-foster-care-adoptio...
What was described there is also not far off from the other unsanitary practices and obnoxious behaviour I've personally seen arise over that period of time.
Considering what I've heard and seen over the years, I don't have any reason to doubt those latest claims. They sound quite plausible.
I know my parents used them, but I never did. My friends used them a bit in university but stopped once they could afford something different. My local community centre's calendar has dried up, despite the space still being there. New neighborhoods sometimes don't even bother to build one now where I am, as there is no demand.
Nobody demolished the churches or the libraries, but they have rapidly aging user bases. Rotary and other similar social clubs would love younger members, but younger people don't want them.
But there also isn't much reason to go there if nobody else does. A weird network-effect thing, right? Like, I didn't bother walking down to the local Chilean bakery that serves food because it's mostly empty most of the time, and there's only so much I can chat to the folks working there about as a stranger who lives down the street.
Granted I live in more expensive areas, but still
The US is building most of its new homes in anti-social car controlled environments, where you can't walk anywhere, everything has to be done by driving. Kids can't just roam the neighborhoods anymore and when they do people start asking if they should call the cops.
We are sick and it doesn't look like there is much thinking in how to fix it.
- Parks: A lot of them, every few blocks there's a large, well maintained park. Trash cans everywhere. - Many community centers, huge, filled with extremely inexpensive or free activities. Community centers all have gyms in them. - Beautiful, modern feeling libraries
It's hard to describe the difference, but it is non trivial.
Everything in your list is stuff I experienced in most of the parts of Canada I visited. Not all though, for instance it wasn't like that in the parts of Mississauga I visited. And everything in your list is stuff I experience regularly in the US, in the parts I've lived in.
- churches: not really for the non religious
- libraries: not if you want to actually talk to people
- parks: only if the weather cooperates
- certain community recreational facilities: spend money? too activity oriented
- gyms: same as aboveThen why'd you put gyms in your list? You DO have to spend a ton of money to get a gym membership. And you can't cancel it because you have to sign a ridiculous contract and basically file a lawsuit to end the membership (not really, but it seems almost this bad).
I've been off and on user of several different gyms over the years. I don't recall actually paying for a gym membership myself. It's usually been a gym at my apartment complex, or a gym at the office park where I work, or my employer covered a gym membership, or I got it through health insurance.