[BanazirGalbasi]

The article mostly seems to blame social media, but I also think that the lack of good social spaces is also key. There's fewer and fewer spaces that a group of teens can just hang out without spending money (due to "no loitering" policies/signs), and that number is even smaller if you count spaces in walking distance of most families. I've also heard/read plenty of anecdotes about malls shrinking or closing down completely, which was historically a common teen hangout spot.

Social media just removes the incentive of isolation, imo. It provides just enough social interaction that there's less reason to go out and see each other in person. I'm in my late 20's and I haven't seen some of my best friends in months, but we all chat in Discord and play games together frequently, almost daily. It's not the same as actually hanging out, but it's enough to make not hanging out less painful.

[actuallyalys]

I also wonder if walkable cities and more public spaces would make social media less isolating. Technology has made it easier to meet in person in some ways so perhaps if there were fewer obstacles to teens meeting that facilitation effect would be stronger.

There’s also the fact that social media corporations are incentivized to keep you using their platform as long as possible. I saw a post pointing out that no social media app notifies friends when you happen to be nearby (presumably an opt-in system). They argued this shows where their priorities are. I’m not sure that specific feature would be so easy to implement, but it does seem like there are many ways social media is oriented away from building deep connections or socializing off their platform (including in person).

[skeaker]

More to your second point, I think the space for teens has simply moved from the mall to Discord. If you decide to count voice calls and group chats as hanging out (which I would say a lot of young people do), I would imagine that you would find that teens are hanging out about as much as they always have.

[rcme]

I doubt lack of social space has anything to do with it. As a kid I would hang out at a literal dump with friends; what else were we going to do? It’s just too easy to waste an afternoon on TikTok.

[crtified]

I agree. Kids make the best of what's available. And in some ways they are still doing so, in this more digital age. In ways we older gens couldn't. But there's no denying that the elephant in the room is the massively pervasive, universal social and information connection that is cellphones and internet. Even we older gens have been subsumed to a fair degree - we're here right now! :)

[storkhm]

Haha spot on. My hang out was this broken slide at an abandon playground. Or you could climb on the metal bar in the overgrown weeds.

There is just no way I would be doing that in 2023 as a kid. It was fun at the time because the alternative was even more boring.

[lockhouse]

People are also ignoring the fact that we trained children to stay home by themselves and keep themselves occupied and only interact with other kids through computers and cell phones for almost 2 years due to COVID. I think the lockdowns really reprogrammed kids to interact with each other differently than they normally would have.