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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

Playing outdoors, spending time with friends, reading books and hanging out with family is happening a lot less to make room for hours of snap chatting, instagramming, and catching up on You Tube.

I'm pretty sure cause and effect run the other way. The world has changed in a lot of ways and the internet gives people a constructive outlet to fill the void.

Average number of children per household has dropped steadily over several generations. This means not only fewer siblings but fewer aunts, uncles and cousins. There are knock on effects from there that help make it less safe to play outdoors in a lot of places, family less available, etc.

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I don't even buy that it's less safe to play outside, but parents refuse to let their kids do it and those that do have occasionally faced problems with police and child services for doing what parents have allowed their kids to do for generations. It's no surprise kids are turning to screens when they aren't allowed to walk to school let alone ride a bike with friends or go to a park on their own. I also agree that our society has made parents less available. Just to get by every adult in a household is forced to work long hours away from home. We need to find a balance between latchkey kids and helicopter parenting, and making it once again feasible to support a family on a single income would go a long way. Right now, people can work 40 hours a week without even being able to support just themselves!

It can be less safe in part because there are fewer eyes on the street. If everyone has a lot of kids and a lot of those kids are outside together playing stick ball or whatever, it's much less likely one of them will be molested, kidnapped, etc.

I suspect that's true, more eyes would help, but honestly the greatest risk to kids from kidnappers and molesters has always come from their own families and other adults close to the family, and not strangers lurking in playgrounds. Some people are in areas with high crime rates (lots of gang violence for example) but mostly cities are safer than ever. It's nice when you've got a real community of people who know each other, and can watch out for each other. Houses kids know they can run to because some adult they can trust will probably be there to help them if they knock. There were some elderly folks like that in my neighborhood when I grew up. We'd stop by for drinks and to chat as kids. If someone got hurt, or we needed something we always had places to turn to. I don't even know who my neighbors are these days.

I'm aware of those stats. Rest assured, molestation tends to happen in private, without witnesses.

It also means if a kid gets hurt, someone can run get a grown up. They aren't stuck somewhere unable to get help with no witnesses.

No argument there!

The greater danger is them being run over by cars

I do think that if kids returned to playing outdoors there would probably be an adjustment period where people had to learn to expect kids running around and into streets. To hear adult bike-riders talk about how poorly people watch out for them asking people to put their phones down while driving and watch for kids might be a big adjustment.

> There are knock on effects from there that help make it less safe to play outdoors in a lot of places, family less available, etc.

It is perfectly safe to play outdoors, except for cars. Siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins has literally zero to do with safety outside.

It's not more dangerous to play outside (actually it's safer), it just seems that way because of media sensationalism.

You claim it's safer. I'm curious if you can support that.

Not to be argumentative, but what you're saying doesn't fit my firsthand experience as someone who wandered the neighborhood pretty freely as a child and whose own kids didn't. My kids lives occurred in a different context from mine and I never criticized them, just sought to understand the forces at play driving a different set of choices and outcomes.

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