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spent significantly more time at home and with their community, "it takes a village" isn't just a cute phrase

kids also roamed on their own quite a lot more with other kids

cool, so why exactly are people saying that this cant happen anymore and parents need to give screens to their kids in order to have enough time to work? Kids dont roam anymore becasue they have screens, not the other way around.

Nope, I would strongly disagree — kids don't roam anymore and screens fill the time at home, but the social fabric of the US has been collapsing long before smartphones and arguably even the popularity of the internet. Devices have perhaps accelerated the problem, but they're far from the cause.

The dual-income household expectation and collapsing middle-class (lost share of productivity) would be the most to blame from my perspective... there's also a major daycare shortage because of this, the lifestyle changed and surrounding factors haven't caught up. There are kids regularly staying at after school programs until 6pm because parents are working and no one wants kids wandering around on their own, even in teen years. My local mall has banned kids under 18 unsupervised as yet another example.

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