this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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If I wanted to raise superhumans, I'd simply not give them smartphones until they turned 18.
If you wanted to socially stunt them maybe. Please never do this.
As an old fart who witnessed social gatherings for decades, it looks like social stunting comes from smartphones rather than their absence.
When you were growing up there were places you could go to be social without phones. Those don't exist anymore. You can't go to the mall and meet strangers, that would be weird and creepy. If you turn 21, bars do not have young people in them, they are for older people.
There is nowhere gen z people can go to meet other gen z people except online.
I know there is an exception somewhere but for the vast majority of young people today that's the truth.
We didn't 'go' places. We just wandered around. Not quite this long ago, but like this (source):
Genz is 13 to 29 nowadays. Kids that age today are alpha.
Also kids that age in the photo unsupervised today can get their parents arrested.
This is correct from your perspective only.
Young people are still social but they do it differently, if you are no not online you wouldn’t know their is a social gathering nor would you be invited. Not from malace but because all information about any event only exists online.
The person you consider your best friend needs someone to talk to. All their friends are available but not you. You become hard to bond with because your not where everyone else is in digital space.
Many events even require smartphone, even boring restaurants sometimes do with a QR code to see the menu/order.
I hate that kind of stuff but since a few years it has become clear that not having a smartphone is basically a social disability.
I understand that it is harder to bond to someone who isn't immediately digitally available. I understand that "kids these days! " do their social stuff online, but at the same time, they seem to have largely lost all skill at interacting with real humans of slight or no aquaintence.
It is easy to make sarcastic comments on your phone about how stupid this or that is. The sterotypical basement dweller can snark all day. What takes social skill is actively engaging with people you don't care about and finding common ground.
Yes, digital people track some of this on facebook and such, but in real life: in which community groups do they participate? Do they know what their neighbors do and what they like beyond snapshots of events? That is: yeah, they saw that pic of that cookout, but did they know that he volunteer teaches English as a second language Tuesday and Thursday at the library? When was the last time they went into a neighbor's home (or had one visit theirs) to share a cup of coffee and complain about that road that needs fixing and who to push about it?
Edited to replace 'you' with 'they' so there'd be no confusion that I mean multiple 'you' readers rather than a single person.
Do you realize how hostile the outside is to non-adults? Like genuinely I've seen people call the cops because there was a kid riding a bike unsuprivized in a suburban neighborhood. Malls are dying and there's nothing to replace them as a meeting spot.
This isn't even getting into the seeming requirement to spend what feels like 100$ to see a movie now or any of the other stereotypical hang outs. Or how many people have parents that simply do not have time to drive them places.
I'm genuinely interested in your response because I genuinely think the world has become actively hostile to kids being kids.
I think we need to unruin outside for the kids. I don't care about phones