[lelanthran]

> I spent most of my childhood straight-edge and was thus cast out by peers for not joining them in their nonstop sex, alcohol, and drug addictions, and not being interested in sports.

That's a false dichotomy - you posit that those things are the only alternatives, which is incorrect.

I never did non-stop sex, drugs and alcohol (and ignored sports) in school, and yet I was part of a number of different social groupings in school.

> Ancedotal, but virtually all the nerds I grew up with are very successful now, and many of the popular kids that excluded me are still struggling to pay bills having never developed any specialized skills.

That's funny - I was never a nerd (computer or otherwise), and grew up fairly successful.

I think you might be missing the fact that your exclusions has lead you to believe a number of things that simply aren't true, like your first statement above.

[Mordisquitos]

> [...] and yet I was part of a number of different social groupings in school.

While I share your objection on GP commenter's false dichotomy (though honesty who knows, maybe their high school was a real life enactment of Skins!) and their apparently judgemental attitude towards their peers, let's not forget that they also said they connected with:

>> The computer nerds, the anime nerds, the hobbyists, the actors, the musicians, the magicians, and the artists.

I.e. they were also part of a number of social circles despite not engaging in “non-stop sex, drugs and alcohol” etc.

I think that the overarching theme of this discussion is neither the false dichotomy that you pointed out, nor the dichotomy of social vs "non"-social, but rather how intense and alienating are a given culture's expectations to conform to the mainstream or its implications that this or that interest is better as of itself. Multiple social connections will always exist, and some shared interests will be more or less common. That is normal and socially healthy. What truly matters is that interest or lack of it in this or that hobby/theme/lifestyle does not result in cliquey social exclusion which can be very damaging in the long term.

Anecdotally, as someone who grew up in Spain, my generation would often comment on how bizarre it seemed to us that American high schools in fiction virtually always implied such a clear dividing line between those who were popular/sporty/cheerleaders on the one hand, and those who were nerdy/band/theatre on the other. Of course we knew people in school who would fit one stereotype more than others, and people were somewhat divided into groups of friends. However, these groups were neither themed, nor was belonging to one explicit and either-or, nor was there any implied social hierarchy in them.

[floren]

> Anecdotally, as someone who grew up in Spain, my generation would often comment on how bizarre it seemed to us that American high schools in fiction virtually always implied such a clear dividing line between those who were popular/sporty/cheerleaders on the one hand, and those who were nerdy/band/theatre on the other.

I went to an American high school in the early 2000s and was also puzzled by the fictional divisions. A huge portion of the band was also in the football team; our half-time field show was full of dudes in their football uniforms.

The only people who tried to create those sort of divides were a couple music kids who maybe watched too many 80s teen movies or MTV shows.

[Mordisquitos]

I'm glad to hear that. Maybe the high-school-cliques trope is mostly the result of memetic spread across lazy scriptwriters.

[c22]

Growing up I never hung out with the computer nerds, the anime nerds, or the hobbyists(?) but the actors, musicians, magicians, and artists I knew were definitely not straight-edge folks who avoided sex, drugs, and alcohol.

[watwut]

That the parent poster created hateful caricature in his head about how majority of peers is strong argument against making your kids go through the same. Majority of kids are in neither of those groups, as you said. And also, you can be the hobbyists, the actors, the musicians, the magicians, the artists and be on good terms with other average kid - both inside and outside of your hobby. You don't have have to be outcast to like anime or make music.

But, the way OP socialized created false dichotomy in his head. He assumes all the kids not in his direct cycle are "non-stop sex, drugs and alcohol" kids. I mean, maybe he grew in some kind of hellhole being only one who did not ended up in jail. But even then, unless you are living in the same hellhole, you dont have to treat your kids the same.

[lrvick]

I am sure there are endless counter-examples to my point, which helps make it stronger if anything.

Removing any one popular activity from the life of a child be it smartphones, or tobacco, is likely to exclude them from some social groups, and perhaps make them more likely to land in others.

If anything the take-away here is that the idea that a kid not having a smartphone will handicap them in life is nonsense. There are so so many paths to success in this world, though sometimes traveling a different path than the majority can have some advantages.