Why do young people never go out anymore?

[BavarianHound]

I'm 37, so grew up late 90s/early 2000s. I would go out with friends a lot, we'd sit on park benches and wonder around, we'd drink WKDs and could be happily bored in each other's company, we'd call each other or knock the door. I am not saying this was peak socialisation at all, but it was something, we knew how to communicate, how to be bored, had confidence to go to our friends door.

I have 2 sons, 10 & 14. 10 year old will meet with friends, but I'll loiter in the background (he has ASD&ADHD). But my 14 year old never goes out. He plays some sport, but other than that, he is home. He has all this physical energy so can be incredibly hard work because he takes it out on us, just in a playful but annoying way. Very few people he knows seem to go out too, but are home gaming. It feels stunted, and they will never get this time back.

As an aside, local Facebook groups are a hive of "just seen boys hanging outside CO OP, just warning' or 'boys still on a roof, parents shouldn't be allowing such behaviour ' and they attach photos. Not saying anti social behaviour is acceptable, just highlighting that where there was no social commentary on teenagers previously, there is now.

I'm not sure girls are as affected?

Feels like a lost generation ?

My DS goes to the park to play football with his friends.. they are 12.
they do game as well. But they do it together, so its social in a way, they chat while they play…
they love a sleepover too at each other’s houses

Well I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s ruining the lives of many young men for sure. I’m yet to meet a gaming addict who isn’t angry, explosive and entitled. It wrecks the dopamine and reward system of the brain to make you impatient, reactive and tunnel visioned. We really should be doing something about it though what I have no idea

I’m yet to meet a gaming addict who isn’t angry, explosive and entitled.

Isn’t that most addicts (alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc.) not just those that game?

You are making a massive leap, from one 14 year old, to a 'whole generation'.
Even more so when the one 14 you are talking about has ASD.

Of course young people go out. Just as much, or just as little as youngsters always have done.

Some have always been homebodies.

Some have always hung around street corners / park benches.
Some have always been out, busy doing sports or Scouts / Cadets / BB that you won't necessarily see unless you are involved or live in places like the Peak District where DofE expeditions happen.

Agree - and you can game without being an addict

Hahahaaha this is brilliant.

I agree OP. There is absolutely no replacement for physical social interaction. Gaming etc is not even close when it comes to the psychological and social cues teens need to learn.

I saw a group of them hanging outside a coffee shop the other day and it was nice to see.

The problem is that parents are completely overprotecting them in the outside world and completely underprotecting them online.

It's sad to see.

Totally.

I noticed that at 12/13/ 14 lads would wander round together, go and play football etc- just hang out outdoors. It seemed to peter out around 15 and by 16 my younger son was barely leaving the house and seeing anyone. He’d be chatting all night online so it’s not that he had no friends. He said no one went out. It’s shit really. Some of my best memories are just knocking for my best mate and wandering around the neighbourhood.

I went out a lot as a young teen, generally ended up in another friends bedroom, listening to music, eating chipsticks and reading Jackie.

I can assure you that had we been able to communicate via laptop and googled Donny Osmond and David Cassidy from the comfort of our own individual bedrooms, then we would have done.

From what I can gather, my friends daughters are doing pretty much what we did and having the same inane conversations, just differently.

I really agree with this - drinking WKD on a park might not in itself be ideal, but young people DO need to take risks, push boundaries, make mistakes etc etc without constant adult supervision & teenagers today have much less freedom to do that.

There are people on this thread pointing out individual young people they know who buck this trend and that’s fantastic & all power to them but as a society it’s very well documented that lack of socialising is an issue for young people & I do think it’s about much more than individual parenting choice, this article references some of the studies: https://www.ft.com/content/23053544-fede-4c0d-8cda-174e9bdce348

I think gaming is part of the problem but far from all of it - there are camera / video phones meaning kids are under constant scrutiny (there was less evidence when we messed up / embarrassed ourselves when we were young!!), more cars on the roads, the rising cost of everything etc etc

Also, the posters turning their noses up at just hanging out and saying their kids go cycling/bowling/ cinema- paid activities are pricey and not everyone has a place to keep a bike or roads safe enough to cycle on.
The only teens who cycle where I live are the drug delivery boys, and it’s not even a terrible area.
I couldn’t afford to give my kids money for bowling or Nando’s on a regular basis, and I think it’s fine to hang out in the park.
By the way OP I’m a bit older than you and my park bench drink of choice was Thunderbird 😏

I think ‘just hanging out’ is the teen equivalent of free play and massively important for their brain development. Constant directed activities result in a lack of problem solving skills, lack of imagination, lack of ability to tolerate boredom or low-excitement activities. Adult life, for most of us, can’t be constant eating out and exciting activities. There is a lot of boredom as an adult - work, household chores, the more tedious parts of childcare.

I remember just hanging out as being some of my happiest times.

My 15yo DD is always out and about (revision has put a bit of a stop to it of late). Her 13yo sister is too whenever possible - a bit less so as she’s autistic so her social circle is a bit smaller (she’s at an online school) and sometimes anxiety gets the better of her. What I would say is that this has had absolutely nothing to do with my top parenting (beyond trying to raise them as relatively pleasant individuals to be around); it’s just how they are luckily.

No, this is not true

There’s a tendency on here to refuse to acknowledge anything changes, and that ‘it’s always been this way, it just looked slightly different…’ but of course things change - that’s why we live in a completely different landscape to the 80s, 40s, 1800s. Perhaps the core of human suffering remains - poverty, illness, alienation - but this fluctuates and the causes and presentations fluctuate.

The advent of technology and social media/gaming has changed everything. I think somebody at school in 2006 had a more similar school experience to somebody in the 1980s than they did to somebody in 2020, despite the wider time gap, because the crux of our lives were the same before phones and gaming. Playing out, then hanging out, sleepovers, dates, school bus (which of course they have now but nobody really talks as they have phones), parties, sneaking into pubs, eventually having a proper relationship at 17/18 which was usually terrible but lessons learned.

That all used to be a right of passage. Now much of it is gone.

I think times have changed. My teens are not interested in hanging around on a park bench. We build a big summerhouse in the garden and they have their friends in there most weekends to hang out. Still socialising but not causing trouble !

The problem with them being under the watchful eye of an adult all the time is that they don’t learn to trust themselves. Not that I never worry- I worry loads, but when my eldest goes out to some shit club in town and rolls in at 3 am I’m pleased, because he’s out there potentially living life independently.

It's fragmentation. Back in the 70s, kids that lived in the same streets went to the same schools, the same parks, the same pubs/clubs, the same shops, etc. They were also mostly living in the same house 7 days per week. Now they are spread over lots of different schools, many are from broken homes so spend weekends/holidays living with a different parent in a different area. Same with young adults - lots now go off to Unis and never return to their home towns as they get jobs in other towns/cities.

They stay in touch via social media, so tend to "hang out" virtually via online gaming, etc - i.e. "chatting" whilst playing Rocket League, Call of Duty, FIFA, etc etc., as they're no longer actually close enough to get together that often in person.

Add into the that the stupidly high costs of going to a pub or restaurant or club.

A lot of the time, they really would prefer to hang out and meet in person, but due to distances, costs, etc., they can't.

Playing out, then hanging out, sleepovers, dates, school bus (which of course they have now but nobody really talks as they have phones), parties, sneaking into pubs, eventually having a proper relationship at 17/18 which was usually terrible but lessons learned.
That all used to be a right of passage. Now much of it is gone.

It hasn't gone though.
My dc did all of that (except the school bus, as they walked).
Not many sleepovers as they did plenty of nights away from us with Scouts. But then, they still did did more sleepovers than I ever did.

This captured in a much better way the point I was trying to make.

Thank you everyone who contributed, I feel slightly less alone. I think I got somewhat defensive when I was reading the initial posts, partly because it felt like there was some 'othering'. My sons are both intelligent, caring, funny and charismatic, I have, to the best of my limited abilities, been a good parent (as i should be). I don't necessarily want them out drinking on a park bench (and that was never the meaning of my post whatsoever), but i do want them to take risks, to hang around and be bored in the company of friends, to build relationships and experiences outside of school.

Another poster mentioned directed activities which I agree with; replacing these with all forms of 'hanging around', in my humble opinion, is not right, it leaves no unstructured time and as another poster rightfully pointed out, it is the teen equivalent of free play. Could there be a possible class divide here too? more impoverished areas seem to have a higher level of hanging around, not to the same levels as I was younger, but still. These are the teens posted on these horrible community pages. I don't know, but I think its good for young people.

I will continue to gently encourage my eldest to go out, phone a friend etc. My youngest is 10 and is the one with ASD&ADHD, he needs no encouragement at all.

I will try to accept more openly that the works has changed.

Shops and pubs are much much stricter with ID these days. Years ago 15 and 16yr olds were in pubs. There isn't a chance it would happen now. Kids find different things to do and more of them seem to skip the getting very drunk stage.

Exactly, I have a 22 year old son who when he was a teen (16+) I regularly ignored the smell of alcopops on his breath when he told me he’d been playing football in the park…
Or the love bites and occasional waft of weed.
Teens should be out doing these things, there is a single dad next door to me who is worried sick about his son.. 20 years old, he has a part time job but no confidence and has never been on a lads holiday or even to pubs/clubs, never had a girlfriend or been on a date.
I get a feeling there are a lot of boys 16-25 living like this. It’s actually really worrying and sad.

IME differences in affluence, and the organisation it allows, are noticeable at university these days - to the extent that any kids from financially-struggling families still go away to uni (rarely). Mixed bag of outcomes.

More affluent kids, who’ve had most things organised for them (money, transport, time, fun, study, sleep, screen time, food) can struggle to get used to living independently and organise these things for themselves. Whereas kids from families where time and money’s tight, more used to being resourceful, seem to cope much better.

But the advantage remains that going away to university is also a quick way to learn to live independently, even when it’s a very steep learning curve - it can help young people grow up fast.

Plus, affluent kids can take more risks without causing serious damage (financial, confidence, educational/employment options, support) if they mess up. So, the few poorer kids who manage to go away to uni are under a lot of pressure not to mess up. Or decide to drop out if they’re struggling. It’s high stakes for them.

On the other hand, kids who don’t go to uni have few options or incentives to leave their family home in their late teens, as it’s so hard to cover the costs. So they can end up in a twilight zone, with fewer opportunities to broaden horizons and meet new people. And especially if money’s tight.

All young people need more chances to get out of their family homes without parental involvement, even if money’s tight: cheaper and better managed shared accommodation, social security payments rather than loans for full-time students, free/cheap sport and leisure clubs for youngsters, special social events (as students have at uni), free/safe travel, including car pool schemes, and opportunities to travel abroad (volunteering or working).