[korpiq]

"They have no way of seeing their friends except in-game because they must get their parents to drive them everywhere. Even if they drove to their friends house, they have nothing to do with them except play games."

Wait, how common is this in States (I assume)? Here in Finland, kids from 6 or so up go around neighborhood on their own, and have yards&parks to play in. We take them there from the start. Moms/dads circles in parks are a thing, here, with the kids playing around them.

[amanaplanacanal]

Very common. The way post-WWII suburban sprawl has been built in the US, there is almost no place that a child can walk to, in a lot of areas.