[graemep]

It was not like that in the London suburb I grew up in in the 80s. I think it was more common in smaller and poorer towns - maybe because people had less space at home. I agree the age gap probably affects it a lot. Keeping an eye on a younger child at home with help near by is very different from going out.

Kids spending a lot of time in front of the TV was already a concern in the 80s so screen time was definitely a problem back then. IIRC the average amount of time children spent watching TV a day was about five hours a day in the UK.

[eszed]

Of course. Regions and cultures and families varied all over the place - and still do today. I wasn't trying to make any kind of universal claim, just explaining how our social group handled the "but what do you do about younger kids?" question the GP asked.

Yah. Screen time (and, once I got older, specifically video games) caused a lot of parental angst amongst my peer-group's parents, too. My family didn't have a TV, so I read lots of books. Funnily enough, I (later) ran across Victorian-era think-pieces about how books were damaging to young people for all of the same reasons that people are (now, and back when we were kids) concerned about screens.

By the way, this same subject came up in another thread a few days ago, and I had this to say:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599632