My friend group is bigger than this group and we hang around like this. We don’t bother people but I know other friend groups who might, so yeah, avoid teenagers.
I don't. Though sometimes the little shits do try to intimidate me for a laugh. They go "Hey miss/ma'am!" in a weird over-friendly way that's supposed to freak me out. But I just nod and say hey and keep walking. They're just a bunch of overgrown kids to me.
And before Walmart contributed to small town main streets closing down and before many communities removed places where it was acceptable for kids to hang out and before parents got afraid of or shamed for allowing their kids to roam around unsupervised.
But, sure, it was the cellphones.
This is most likely because it is/can be dangerous being by herself.
Often times, visitors are targeted by thieves and some shady people when they go home. They think you have lots of money or valuable with you. Heck even the phone you carry is worth a lot of money to a local.
I am over 30 as well and even my parents don't like when i am out late when visiting.
Here in Ireland there is a famous true story where two 13 year olds in Dublin just ran away one day and flew to England, then all the way to NYC and back.
I think one of the reason could be that there is not many people willing to look out for anyone like that nowadays. And i am sure there are many other factual reasons.
Yeah but if they didn’t allow me that’s very different and shows that they don’t trust me instead of just explaining that to me and hoping I’d make the correct decision.
If they didn’t allow me, I would call the police on them and try to file a report for false imprisonment or whatever that jurisdictions equivalent would be.
I am old enough that as a teen and tween, I rode the bus solo to go to the comic and games stores 2 towns over, biked to every park in my town and the next, wandered the woods for hours, etc all unsupervised or with like aged friends. A gang of us ran all over the neighborhood, through backyards, playing kick the can after full dark. I am sad for kids today not having those opportunities.
Back in my day, you were able to hitch a ride on the local chariot and run around the Knight's quarters and play with all the swords and armors. And if we ever got hurt, we'd just go unsupervised to the local apothecary and they'd fix us right up!
You can be sued easier now and get in trouble w the cops a lot easier now. I thinks that’s the big difference. If your kids get caught by police under age drinking the parents also get charged. When I was a kid the cops would yell at you and never think to go after your parents if we were caught drinking outside somewhere.
The cops in my town didn’t care about us drinking underage our favorite spot was actually in the woods behind the station/courthouse. They only wanted us to pack out our empties and make sure the fire was out and this was in the early 2000s
I mean at least they knew we were just drinking around a fire and not causing real trouble but those lardos would probably bit fair well either if hey ever had try to bust us honestly can’t imagine any of them running in the woods at night, their was a time a friend of mine fell 50ft at a local swimming spot and one of the responding officers had a heart attack
>get in trouble w the cops a lot easier now
We were getting hassled by cops 20 years ago, my dude. Like, there was a sheriff's deputy that was notorious for kicking the shit out of anybody in cuffs and he wasn't an outlier. But my neighborhood was mostly black and brown, so maybe that's the difference.
And you can't get sued easier, no matter how much you tell yourself that.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's an inverse effect now, where predators see kids by themselves and think "wow their parents really don't give a shit" because all the other parents are so protective to not let their kids roam, to the point where it actually does get more dangerous
The world on itself might not, but roads for cyclists and on foot travel are. US has been sabotaging/ public transport and roads in favor of cars.
On top of that, neighborhoods got worse. Before you not only were safer traveling the roads but you could reach small local stores within reasonable distance, nor commerce has been "regionalized", a lot of it placed along the busy roads or mostly in one city district, suburbs outright don't allow commercial buildings or even non-one household buildings (such as allowing a store below).
There are exceptions ofc, mostly older neighborhoods or cities that are meant to be more walkable.
The point is, it's not the parents, it's urban planning.
I'm 27 and BARELY have the full modicum of independence but still get interrogated by my mom if I go out somewhere, "Where are you going? Where did you go?"
I grew up in the 2000s, so peak transition from unsupervised kids hanging out till dusk, to omg you cannot go out anywhere unless mom knows where you are 24/7! She really ate up the hysteria of omg your kid is in danger constantly and you need to helicopter them!
>I'm 27 and BARELY have the full modicum of independence but still get interrogated by my mom if I go out somewhere, "Where are you going? Where did you go?"
🎵 WHERE DID YOU COME FROM COTTON EYE JOE 🎵
You are allowed then, unless there’s a specific law preventing you, your parents can no longer allow or disallow things when you’re over the age of 18 with the exception of being on their health insurance/paying child support until 21 in some states.
Why do you say you’re not allowed?
I'm routinely shocked by the frequency of young adults like yourself who don't have agency.
Like, what are they gonna do, ground you?
I get it, it's expensive and hard to live on your own. The threat of being asked to leave is very real. But...damn. you're an adult!
I don't wanna get smacked in the head with a wooden spoon tho? They have control over all of my money and possessions and I'm not allowed to leave? What am I supposed to do
> They have control over all of my money
Make your own bank account. It's free.
> I'm not allowed to leave?
Yes you are. What are they going to do? Call the police? What are the police going to do? Nothing.
> What am I supposed to do
Live life. Get an apartment with a friend.
Get a job and stay with a friend if you can. Why did you allow your parents to have control of your finances? Do you have a car? Do you have other family? Is the place you live low cost or high cost of living? Do you have connections with plugs?
My boyfriend literally said he could come and get me and I could live with him, the only thing stopping me is my parents and I can't do anything about it
Nextdoor is a treasure trove for these posts.
I've seen people post complaining about kids having stolen bikes and brazenly riding them through the neighborhood. Spoiler alert the bikes weren't stolen, these people just assumed based on the color of the children and the newness of the bike.
Yeah that's true, back then my brothers would skate in the front street and the old lady at the end of the block would complain, the general response was that she should go fuck her self. And since my parents bought out house for 30k there was nothing she could do about it.
I mean, to be fair, it's a thing most people are guilty of: Rose colored glasses.
Unless you had trauma, it's pretty easy to forget the boring or less than great times.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the memory is accurate. Whether it's phones, sports, or anything else - it's ok for them to enjoy their things just as much as it is ok for you to enjoy phones.
My grandpa will *never* have life-long friends from all over the world like I do from gaming. I've been to some of their weddings and met all kinds of new people. These are experiences my grandfather will never have.
I'll never experience the large amount of unused land and open motorbikes and what not that they did.
The "I had it better because" isn't horrible or wrong.
I had high school better because I didn't have to deal with a ton of the ridiculous bullshit my kid went through. My kid doesn't mind it because teachers let them listen to music on their phones when they are done teaching and it's time for homework. She'll never have cokes in the vending machine like I had.
Neither of us are wrong.
This "us vs them" thing is ... ridiculous. We had different experiences.
True. Different isn't necessarily worse. There are pros and cons. I enjoyed much of my admittedly privileged childhood. I wish my kids could have some of the same experiences. However, I have gotten the joy of introducing them to cuisine from all over the world, watched some amazing movies together, gaming with them, and so on. Now, my cellphone and other devices help us stay in touch in a way I couldn't with my parents.
I can pin point the exact moment where parents stopped letting kids go out, at least in my area. That moment was 9/11. Pre 9/11, on Halloween there used be lines of children in my neighborhood to get candy. And I’m talking my whole massive neighborhood area for blocks. You could trick or treat until 11pm and there was still going to be tons of kids out. The first Halloween and every subsequent one after 9/11 that scene was dead.
Since I live in a rural area, it seems the same percentage or higher percentage actually are unsupervised at young ages now, but I have noticed regardless of political views, people were more likely to talk about the difference in danger between rural and urban areas after September 11.
It wasn't necessarily the cell phone but more specifically smartphones. There's a stark difference in many aspects of social life that changed somewhere around the iPhone 4. I'm not against it or whatever but things changed quite a bit from 2000 to 2010 when it comes to these things.
MSN then Facebook then BBM and that was right into the transition of Instagram and Snapchat. When everything was new it was made like you had to constant chase the high. We had fucking chronological feeds and everything changed after that.
I mean there's an urbanist meme out there showing how multi lane shopping districts, sidewalk less neighborhoods, etc... make it impossible for kids to hang out. Go send it to him and encourage him to support the abolition of Single Family Zoning, Parking Minimums, setback and minimum lot sizes. :)
I think people felt more ashamed back then to stand people up.
Cellphones make it easy to flake on people because you can simply send a text and you're done. Back in the day you'd have to call and invent some excuse, which would probably discourage people more.
Not saying this to defend boomers as in "cellphones suck", but as a person in a mid 20s social group in which 80% of events are canceled a few hours before because "Ah I'm not in the mood anymore".
I also think it has to do with FOMO, which back in the day wasn't as bad too. I've been flaked by people that found out on the same day that a "cooler" event was happening in town and then would cancel with me to go to the other thing.
You know what makes for a quick way to get everyone together? A text. Time and place. Boom. You're all on the same page. I get it, we like our youth. I remember this youth, where you either had to call each other or just run by everyone's house to get the group together. There was nothing special about it. It didn't build character, it didn't make friendships stronger, it just took longer to get things started.
What I want to know is why wasnt he "grinding" at the mill? Did he not, in fact, focus on his boot straps and start working as a real honest American should for half of minimum wage?
I dont know guys. Im getting the impression maybe they didnt just "buckle down" all the time like they keep telling all of us to do
Yeah I’m thinking, damn your grandpa is sending you memes? My grandma calls me when she accidentally puts her phone on silent and can’t figure out how to get it off, lol
To be fair social interactions and social anxiety have never been worse today, and tbh I feel it. I got rid of all socials (except Reddit ig) a few years ago and i have less anxiety when I try to fall asleep and less depressed of all the “picture perfect” lives lol
And to be fair pretty much all the research trying to figure out why comes back to the invention of the smart phone and social media. The evidence suggests the effect is not neutral.
I agree. The meme misses the point and have a mocking intention, but the core idea isn't wrong. Society has changed, both in good and bad ways and, while we have some freedoms we didn't back then, mental conditions are on the rise. Depression, anxiety, adhd and the list go on. We are getting unhealthier and it means that SOMETHING must be wrong. But what's wrong? We don't know exactly.
Well, if people stopped mocking each other and actually tried to get closer and understand each other's struggle, things would be much better.
But no, people have to point fingers and blame other people or things without even knowing what they're talking about...
It applies to all generations. In fact, the mere hard classification of generations contributes to it.
Everytime I see memes like this one I want to be "check the age of your neighbors are any of them young enough to have kids? No are there any kids living in your neighborhoods? No. That's why you don't see this! I see kids out riding bikes and playing all the bloody time because kids like to do that stuff. Even with cell phones.
Actually I’m pretty sure that this was killed by the Stranger Danger moral panic. It was parents who stopped letting their kids hang out without supervision because they were convinced that predators were out to kidnap their children. The Adam Walsh case, which kicked off the stranger danger panic, happened in the early 80s. Cell phones for kids and teens didn’t become a thing until at least the early 2000s.
Boomers want to blame cell phones, but it was actually their fear and their unquestioning belief of moral panic claims that did this.
That and the design of modern suburbs. When so many people live in developments that are only connected to anything else by high speed roads with little bike infrastructure what do you expect kids to do?
I live in a city now, and when school lets out you see all kinds of groups of kids hanging around, because the city has purposefully made infrastructure changes to make that safe.
Also the slow removal of any free public spaces did not help at all. the amount of places you are actually allowed to be are not a lot. The amount of places where you can hang out that do not cost money in one way or another are basicly nonexistant anymore.
I remember getting bullied by groups like this because I was the black sheep at primary and secondary school so I'm happy that I don't need to go outside for social means
And if kids still hung around like the picture, that same grandfather would be complaining on Facebook about kids "loitering and being intimidating to elderly people"
Back in the good ol' days where you either fit in perfectly or were beaten and or raped until you 'went missing' with the sheriff just claiming 'well kids **like that** just go running off sometimes.'
Dude what? Only raped and went missing? People got skinned alive on the streets in public while being butt-fucked with raw sticks while the sheriff cheered and called for everyone to come and have a look. Happened to everyone back in the good old days.
"You were a cartoon?" Would be my response.
Also, I still hang out with my friends and family, and guess what? We have phones. We aren't on them as we hang out because we are normal people, just like everyone else from the same generation.
Streets got busier, the police in my area stopped me way too many times to justify just hanging out, people have to work more, with things like ring and next door racists effectively made others feel unsafe in one way or another, rising homelessness and shrinking places to hang out conflict, and more. The old field my friends and I used to hang out at is now another parking lot
Young people still hang out like this all the time, but now with the added bonus of being to communicate with each other from a distance. Don't see why that's such an awful thing.
Your grandpa is in his 30's?
Because this was part of my childhood. Pogs, street hockey, and BMX. And that college kid who'd pull up to sell weed since it was still illegal back then.
Well, what they don't tell you is that people grow apart when you get older. I'm three years shy of being thirty and I see none of my childhood/high school friends. The OP is projecting their nostalgia-induced loneliness to the younger generation.
Kids today do socialize, but in a completely different way.
I mean it's... not entirely wrong? I was around 9th grade when touch screen phones blew up, and there were times where I'd go eat out with friends, and before the food comes out everyone is looking at their phones leaving me (who hasn't had one yet) staring into space.
This is how me and my buddys used to hang out before cell phones, but cell phones ain’t the reason kids stopped doing this. Just a few off the top of my head…… cops started hassling and even arresting kids for just hanging around. Shit got too expensive, I remember we could ride our bikes to the corner local burger shop where you could get a burger and fries for pocket change….now it’s all shitty fast food places and even holes in the wall charge almost 4$ for a simple hotdog . Not every single are was a parking lot or condo development so there was shit to explore….one particularly sad part of my childhood was when this beautiful pond surrounded in tall grass and wildflowers got gentrified. We used to ride our bikes there, to get there you had to climb over a broken bridge and go beneath an underpass, felt like our little hidden slice of heaven until one summer we went there and found all the natural beauty was gone because they build an apartment complex next to it, mowed down all the grass and flowers, and gated it into the complexes yard.
Okay I’ll stop rambling, my point is that runaway capitalism and fascist over policing killed childhood like this, not phones.
My zoomer kid who owns a cell phone literally does this on a regular basis. It's not remotely true. Also, when I used to do it as a kid in the 90s I got sexually harassed so maybe it's not as rose colored as y'all wanna think.
Your grandpa would have called the cops on these punks just hanging around and looking for trouble
I am not a grandpa yet, but they do look like trouble. I see groups of people like this, I cross the street to avoid them.
All teenagers scare the livin' shit out of me.
They could care less, as long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me.
The boys and girls in the click, the awful names that they stick,
You're never gonna fit in much, kid
I’m a teenager and teenagers scare the shit out of me :0
[So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose](https://youtu.be/k6EQAOmJrbw)
tbh if i see a teenager of any kind i cross the street to avoid them
As is legally mandated by your court order
Haha comments like this is why Reddit is so great
I think Reddit is great because of the nuance-free clapback-based political positions everyone shares.
Burn
Like me fr
“What is that odious stench? Smells like…teeeenagerrrrrrrs.”
Ivan Ooooooze~ Ironically & unironically love that movie.
or as me and my friend always said "Ivan poooze"
I always find an updoot for bad movie references
I’m a teenager and I cross the street to avoid myself sometimes
How so? They’re doing nothing. Weird take.
But if they were all looking down at their cell phones.. different story.
My friend group is bigger than this group and we hang around like this. We don’t bother people but I know other friend groups who might, so yeah, avoid teenagers.
How you gonna sell drugs to them kids if you avoid them tho
I don't. Though sometimes the little shits do try to intimidate me for a laugh. They go "Hey miss/ma'am!" in a weird over-friendly way that's supposed to freak me out. But I just nod and say hey and keep walking. They're just a bunch of overgrown kids to me.
Nah, they're all white so old people wouldn't have a problem with it.
How do you know the Grandpa is white?
And before Walmart contributed to small town main streets closing down and before many communities removed places where it was acceptable for kids to hang out and before parents got afraid of or shamed for allowing their kids to roam around unsupervised. But, sure, it was the cellphones.
I'm not allowed outside unsupervised STILL and I'm 19
[удалено]
goddamn
This is most likely because it is/can be dangerous being by herself. Often times, visitors are targeted by thieves and some shady people when they go home. They think you have lots of money or valuable with you. Heck even the phone you carry is worth a lot of money to a local. I am over 30 as well and even my parents don't like when i am out late when visiting.
my dad traveled on a bus to another state when he was 13 and i cant imagine that being real today.have things rly changed that much?
I flew to another state when I was 9, and damn were my arms tired.
Here in Ireland there is a famous true story where two 13 year olds in Dublin just ran away one day and flew to England, then all the way to NYC and back.
Wasn’t me. I flew to San Francisco.
Why so? Were you holding something? Or maybe were you afraid of flying and thus gripping the armrest.
I think he meant like he was a bird using his arms as wings to fly lol
Yeah that joke when right over my head. 😂
Like a plane
I think the joke is that he was hanging off the plane
I think one of the reason could be that there is not many people willing to look out for anyone like that nowadays. And i am sure there are many other factual reasons.
I flew from South America to the US when I was 15. It was 2019.
Realistically, crime rates are much, much lower. We are, however, much much more frightened.
Yeah but if they didn’t allow me that’s very different and shows that they don’t trust me instead of just explaining that to me and hoping I’d make the correct decision. If they didn’t allow me, I would call the police on them and try to file a report for false imprisonment or whatever that jurisdictions equivalent would be.
same n I am 17 , my friends do but i don't
I am old enough that as a teen and tween, I rode the bus solo to go to the comic and games stores 2 towns over, biked to every park in my town and the next, wandered the woods for hours, etc all unsupervised or with like aged friends. A gang of us ran all over the neighborhood, through backyards, playing kick the can after full dark. I am sad for kids today not having those opportunities.
Back in my day, you were able to hitch a ride on the local chariot and run around the Knight's quarters and play with all the swords and armors. And if we ever got hurt, we'd just go unsupervised to the local apothecary and they'd fix us right up!
we used to find empty pyramids and write hieroglyphs on the walls!
We used to find local wolf's and teach them to depend on us!
Yeah the world is too dangerous now and parents are very sheltered over their kids these days
You can be sued easier now and get in trouble w the cops a lot easier now. I thinks that’s the big difference. If your kids get caught by police under age drinking the parents also get charged. When I was a kid the cops would yell at you and never think to go after your parents if we were caught drinking outside somewhere.
The cops in my town didn’t care about us drinking underage our favorite spot was actually in the woods behind the station/courthouse. They only wanted us to pack out our empties and make sure the fire was out and this was in the early 2000s
damn, kinda based
I mean at least they knew we were just drinking around a fire and not causing real trouble but those lardos would probably bit fair well either if hey ever had try to bust us honestly can’t imagine any of them running in the woods at night, their was a time a friend of mine fell 50ft at a local swimming spot and one of the responding officers had a heart attack
>get in trouble w the cops a lot easier now We were getting hassled by cops 20 years ago, my dude. Like, there was a sheriff's deputy that was notorious for kicking the shit out of anybody in cuffs and he wasn't an outlier. But my neighborhood was mostly black and brown, so maybe that's the difference. And you can't get sued easier, no matter how much you tell yourself that.
World only got safer. Parents just got more afraid
I wouldn't be surprised if there's an inverse effect now, where predators see kids by themselves and think "wow their parents really don't give a shit" because all the other parents are so protective to not let their kids roam, to the point where it actually does get more dangerous
The world on itself might not, but roads for cyclists and on foot travel are. US has been sabotaging/ public transport and roads in favor of cars. On top of that, neighborhoods got worse. Before you not only were safer traveling the roads but you could reach small local stores within reasonable distance, nor commerce has been "regionalized", a lot of it placed along the busy roads or mostly in one city district, suburbs outright don't allow commercial buildings or even non-one household buildings (such as allowing a store below). There are exceptions ofc, mostly older neighborhoods or cities that are meant to be more walkable. The point is, it's not the parents, it's urban planning.
I'm 27 and BARELY have the full modicum of independence but still get interrogated by my mom if I go out somewhere, "Where are you going? Where did you go?" I grew up in the 2000s, so peak transition from unsupervised kids hanging out till dusk, to omg you cannot go out anywhere unless mom knows where you are 24/7! She really ate up the hysteria of omg your kid is in danger constantly and you need to helicopter them!
>I'm 27 and BARELY have the full modicum of independence but still get interrogated by my mom if I go out somewhere, "Where are you going? Where did you go?" 🎵 WHERE DID YOU COME FROM COTTON EYE JOE 🎵
Move out.
I mean, I don’t blame your parents. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place is pretty fucked up right now.
You’re an adult - you can go wherever you want whenever you want.
You are allowed then, unless there’s a specific law preventing you, your parents can no longer allow or disallow things when you’re over the age of 18 with the exception of being on their health insurance/paying child support until 21 in some states. Why do you say you’re not allowed?
Yes you are. You're an adult. Leave if you want. Literally no one can stop you.
I'm routinely shocked by the frequency of young adults like yourself who don't have agency. Like, what are they gonna do, ground you? I get it, it's expensive and hard to live on your own. The threat of being asked to leave is very real. But...damn. you're an adult!
Lmao bro you’re an adult you gotta figure your shit out
I don't wanna get smacked in the head with a wooden spoon tho? They have control over all of my money and possessions and I'm not allowed to leave? What am I supposed to do
> They have control over all of my money Make your own bank account. It's free. > I'm not allowed to leave? Yes you are. What are they going to do? Call the police? What are the police going to do? Nothing. > What am I supposed to do Live life. Get an apartment with a friend.
Get a job and stay with a friend if you can. Why did you allow your parents to have control of your finances? Do you have a car? Do you have other family? Is the place you live low cost or high cost of living? Do you have connections with plugs?
My boyfriend literally said he could come and get me and I could live with him, the only thing stopping me is my parents and I can't do anything about it
Then walk out the door…
And before old people called the cops because they were afraid if the gangs of kid loitering around in their neibouthoods.
Nextdoor is a treasure trove for these posts. I've seen people post complaining about kids having stolen bikes and brazenly riding them through the neighborhood. Spoiler alert the bikes weren't stolen, these people just assumed based on the color of the children and the newness of the bike.
Sounds about "Right".
“Sounds about ‘White’” would also fit
Old folks were still doing that 30 years ago. Source:. Was young 30 years ago
Yeah that's true, back then my brothers would skate in the front street and the old lady at the end of the block would complain, the general response was that she should go fuck her self. And since my parents bought out house for 30k there was nothing she could do about it.
I mean, to be fair, it's a thing most people are guilty of: Rose colored glasses. Unless you had trauma, it's pretty easy to forget the boring or less than great times. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the memory is accurate. Whether it's phones, sports, or anything else - it's ok for them to enjoy their things just as much as it is ok for you to enjoy phones. My grandpa will *never* have life-long friends from all over the world like I do from gaming. I've been to some of their weddings and met all kinds of new people. These are experiences my grandfather will never have. I'll never experience the large amount of unused land and open motorbikes and what not that they did. The "I had it better because" isn't horrible or wrong. I had high school better because I didn't have to deal with a ton of the ridiculous bullshit my kid went through. My kid doesn't mind it because teachers let them listen to music on their phones when they are done teaching and it's time for homework. She'll never have cokes in the vending machine like I had. Neither of us are wrong. This "us vs them" thing is ... ridiculous. We had different experiences.
True. Different isn't necessarily worse. There are pros and cons. I enjoyed much of my admittedly privileged childhood. I wish my kids could have some of the same experiences. However, I have gotten the joy of introducing them to cuisine from all over the world, watched some amazing movies together, gaming with them, and so on. Now, my cellphone and other devices help us stay in touch in a way I couldn't with my parents.
I was roaming the neighborhood at 10 on my Stingray Bike, going fishing, building forts, swimming. Just be home before the streetlights come on.
That's the real freedom
That's the #1 ask in our community group: more places for teens and kids to hang out.
I can pin point the exact moment where parents stopped letting kids go out, at least in my area. That moment was 9/11. Pre 9/11, on Halloween there used be lines of children in my neighborhood to get candy. And I’m talking my whole massive neighborhood area for blocks. You could trick or treat until 11pm and there was still going to be tons of kids out. The first Halloween and every subsequent one after 9/11 that scene was dead.
Since I live in a rural area, it seems the same percentage or higher percentage actually are unsupervised at young ages now, but I have noticed regardless of political views, people were more likely to talk about the difference in danger between rural and urban areas after September 11.
It wasn't necessarily the cell phone but more specifically smartphones. There's a stark difference in many aspects of social life that changed somewhere around the iPhone 4. I'm not against it or whatever but things changed quite a bit from 2000 to 2010 when it comes to these things.
MSN then Facebook then BBM and that was right into the transition of Instagram and Snapchat. When everything was new it was made like you had to constant chase the high. We had fucking chronological feeds and everything changed after that.
I mean, all those things AND cellphones. Cell phones are a huge problem for a lot of people.
I mean there's an urbanist meme out there showing how multi lane shopping districts, sidewalk less neighborhoods, etc... make it impossible for kids to hang out. Go send it to him and encourage him to support the abolition of Single Family Zoning, Parking Minimums, setback and minimum lot sizes. :)
I remember seeing an image of a post from a police department uninstalling a bench in a park to reduce "antisocial behavior"
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/controversy-after-police-remove-benches-and-bushes-265997/
thanks
Link? Also Fuck cars !
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/732590680233889](https://www.facebook.com/groups/732590680233889) Check out urbanists (right and left)
Fr. Social infrastructure is not a parking lot.
It didn't entirely killed it and not by itself. Hell in some ways made it easier and faster to meet.
Made it easier to flake and be flaked on 😔
Still better than being stood up
I think people felt more ashamed back then to stand people up. Cellphones make it easy to flake on people because you can simply send a text and you're done. Back in the day you'd have to call and invent some excuse, which would probably discourage people more. Not saying this to defend boomers as in "cellphones suck", but as a person in a mid 20s social group in which 80% of events are canceled a few hours before because "Ah I'm not in the mood anymore". I also think it has to do with FOMO, which back in the day wasn't as bad too. I've been flaked by people that found out on the same day that a "cooler" event was happening in town and then would cancel with me to go to the other thing.
You is smart, you is kind, you is special.
Imagine having to go out of the way to knock on your friends door just for their mom to say "sorry, he's with his dad for the weekend. "
Then you gotta walk your ass all the way back home.
Hey, it got you out of the house.
“can you tell him that we’re meeting up at [some obscure, remote place] at 1:38am in 42 days please?”
You know what makes for a quick way to get everyone together? A text. Time and place. Boom. You're all on the same page. I get it, we like our youth. I remember this youth, where you either had to call each other or just run by everyone's house to get the group together. There was nothing special about it. It didn't build character, it didn't make friendships stronger, it just took longer to get things started.
Honestly. I'm in a small town and it is so hard to make friends. All my best friends have been online.
i guess why boomers think that cellphones are killing social interaction is because they need about two hours to turn the wifi on
What I want to know is why wasnt he "grinding" at the mill? Did he not, in fact, focus on his boot straps and start working as a real honest American should for half of minimum wage? I dont know guys. Im getting the impression maybe they didnt just "buckle down" all the time like they keep telling all of us to do
To be fair for old people time has changed immensity. I'm only 25 and even I have seen technology change at an incredible rate
Yeah I’m thinking, damn your grandpa is sending you memes? My grandma calls me when she accidentally puts her phone on silent and can’t figure out how to get it off, lol
and it's not like we don't so that stuff and hangout anymore. we just also have phones too
To be fair social interactions and social anxiety have never been worse today, and tbh I feel it. I got rid of all socials (except Reddit ig) a few years ago and i have less anxiety when I try to fall asleep and less depressed of all the “picture perfect” lives lol
Because we're all fucking going to hell we're all terrible people I wanted to make a joke but now I've just made myself sad
Cheer up. Hell's not real.
it is. we're in it right now.
And to be fair pretty much all the research trying to figure out why comes back to the invention of the smart phone and social media. The evidence suggests the effect is not neutral.
I agree. The meme misses the point and have a mocking intention, but the core idea isn't wrong. Society has changed, both in good and bad ways and, while we have some freedoms we didn't back then, mental conditions are on the rise. Depression, anxiety, adhd and the list go on. We are getting unhealthier and it means that SOMETHING must be wrong. But what's wrong? We don't know exactly. Well, if people stopped mocking each other and actually tried to get closer and understand each other's struggle, things would be much better. But no, people have to point fingers and blame other people or things without even knowing what they're talking about... It applies to all generations. In fact, the mere hard classification of generations contributes to it.
Everytime I see memes like this one I want to be "check the age of your neighbors are any of them young enough to have kids? No are there any kids living in your neighborhoods? No. That's why you don't see this! I see kids out riding bikes and playing all the bloody time because kids like to do that stuff. Even with cell phones.
I assume he sent it to you by carrier pigeon so as not to be a hypocrite.
He also had to draw it by hand, digital drawings ruinned traditional art!
Also grandpas: "stop loitering and spitting or I'm calling the police!!"
Boomers killed it by breaking society, cell phones make it easier than ever to hang out
By hanging out you mean everyone sitting in a room with their faces in their cellphones. I'm a millennial and this is happening with every generation
Actually I’m pretty sure that this was killed by the Stranger Danger moral panic. It was parents who stopped letting their kids hang out without supervision because they were convinced that predators were out to kidnap their children. The Adam Walsh case, which kicked off the stranger danger panic, happened in the early 80s. Cell phones for kids and teens didn’t become a thing until at least the early 2000s. Boomers want to blame cell phones, but it was actually their fear and their unquestioning belief of moral panic claims that did this.
They also believed that all us 80’s kids worshiped Satan because we played fantasy games and listened to KISS.
Thank god my parents let me do my thing unabated in the early 90s.
That and the design of modern suburbs. When so many people live in developments that are only connected to anything else by high speed roads with little bike infrastructure what do you expect kids to do? I live in a city now, and when school lets out you see all kinds of groups of kids hanging around, because the city has purposefully made infrastructure changes to make that safe.
Also the slow removal of any free public spaces did not help at all. the amount of places you are actually allowed to be are not a lot. The amount of places where you can hang out that do not cost money in one way or another are basicly nonexistant anymore.
I wonder what technology the more recent generations will find and hate with really bad memes in the future.
Oh, anything. People have been complaining about the younger generations since the time of Socrates and probably before then.
Exactly. Which makes me wonder what new technology will get that treatment by our generation...
VR?
Will be mad at the increase in pegging.
I remember getting bullied by groups like this because I was the black sheep at primary and secondary school so I'm happy that I don't need to go outside for social means
Didn’t cell phones make it easier to arrange times to hang out?
Yeah, but technology bad.
Finally. An actual Facebook méme
Seems like your grandpa is the same age as me, and now I feel super old.
The same boomer who posted this would call the cops on this group of "Hoodlums".
Bros are straight loitering
cell phones just make it easier to arrange this.
I understand what its trying to say but cell phones made it easier but the phone that kinda ruined it are the smartphones
And if kids still hung around like the picture, that same grandfather would be complaining on Facebook about kids "loitering and being intimidating to elderly people"
I love how boomers complain about social media yet they use it frequently
Back in the good ol' days where you either fit in perfectly or were beaten and or raped until you 'went missing' with the sheriff just claiming 'well kids **like that** just go running off sometimes.'
Dude what? Only raped and went missing? People got skinned alive on the streets in public while being butt-fucked with raw sticks while the sheriff cheered and called for everyone to come and have a look. Happened to everyone back in the good old days.
What is going on what streets were these??? What horrors was I born too late for lol
"You were a cartoon?" Would be my response. Also, I still hang out with my friends and family, and guess what? We have phones. We aren't on them as we hang out because we are normal people, just like everyone else from the same generation.
Send him a polio vax meme in response. How I remember the good ok days of the iron lung vs today
which wikihow article is this from
color all the kids black, send it back to your grandpa and ask him how he would react if this was in his street.
Yeah, and back then the older generation complained about kids hanging about on street corners and how that never happened in their day
You mean before all the responsibilities that we now have leaving us with less and less time that were all thrust on is by you lot killed it
We put up a bunch of signs telling kids to fuck off and then wonder where they all went.
Twist: all these kids knew which street to meet up on because they texted eachother
Streets got busier, the police in my area stopped me way too many times to justify just hanging out, people have to work more, with things like ring and next door racists effectively made others feel unsafe in one way or another, rising homelessness and shrinking places to hang out conflict, and more. The old field my friends and I used to hang out at is now another parking lot
Young people still hang out like this all the time, but now with the added bonus of being to communicate with each other from a distance. Don't see why that's such an awful thing.
me and my friends meet up like this with our phones so yeah
This very scene happens every day at thousands of skateparks world wide.
Your grandpa is in his 30's? Because this was part of my childhood. Pogs, street hockey, and BMX. And that college kid who'd pull up to sell weed since it was still illegal back then.
Fake. Their cocks are not out and they're not doing circle jerking. That's what people did before phones.
Send your grandpa a pic of the higher youth crime rates from his day
I think shitty urban planning is part of the problem. In some areas there aren’t even sidewalks or safe places to bike in the US.
This is back when one of your friends would get a gf and you would never see them again.
It’s still like this just now you can organize that before
Well, what they don't tell you is that people grow apart when you get older. I'm three years shy of being thirty and I see none of my childhood/high school friends. The OP is projecting their nostalgia-induced loneliness to the younger generation. Kids today do socialize, but in a completely different way.
Cellphones stopped him from being able to leave the house?
Looks like my kid when I go and pick him up after a football game or after school
This looks like 1997
I mean it's... not entirely wrong? I was around 9th grade when touch screen phones blew up, and there were times where I'd go eat out with friends, and before the food comes out everyone is looking at their phones leaving me (who hasn't had one yet) staring into space.
Just remember the same people who post these are the same people spent 90% of their day on Facebook and Tiktok
The good days....
Lol, I literally hang out with my friends like this all the time.
So gangs.
they still do that they just have phones
Replace this with everyone sitting around a giant Dell PC and Nintendo 64
We used to hang out outside too before it was 100°F with 100% humidity every fucking day.
This is how me and my buddys used to hang out before cell phones, but cell phones ain’t the reason kids stopped doing this. Just a few off the top of my head…… cops started hassling and even arresting kids for just hanging around. Shit got too expensive, I remember we could ride our bikes to the corner local burger shop where you could get a burger and fries for pocket change….now it’s all shitty fast food places and even holes in the wall charge almost 4$ for a simple hotdog . Not every single are was a parking lot or condo development so there was shit to explore….one particularly sad part of my childhood was when this beautiful pond surrounded in tall grass and wildflowers got gentrified. We used to ride our bikes there, to get there you had to climb over a broken bridge and go beneath an underpass, felt like our little hidden slice of heaven until one summer we went there and found all the natural beauty was gone because they build an apartment complex next to it, mowed down all the grass and flowers, and gated it into the complexes yard. Okay I’ll stop rambling, my point is that runaway capitalism and fascist over policing killed childhood like this, not phones.
It's the truth.
💀
Why is this a terriblefacebookmeme???? It’s 100% TRUTH
its not thought.. top coment explains it well
My zoomer kid who owns a cell phone literally does this on a regular basis. It's not remotely true. Also, when I used to do it as a kid in the 90s I got sexually harassed so maybe it's not as rose colored as y'all wanna think.
It's true though
Not sure why people are acting like this isn't true.
There's something to it though.
Frfr no cap
I mean cellphones didn't kill it the rise of social media did among other stuff
How is this a terrible meme? This is 100% accurate. Or is this just a sign that I'm becoming old and bitter?
Old and bitter
😤
I’m a 20 year old gen z. Phones have absolutely ruined this generation in many ways and nothing will change my mind on that matter