Whatever happened to just hanging out?
Everything these days is so planned out and structured that there is rarely time for unstructured hang-out time.
I remember randomly showing up to a friend’s house as a kid to see what they were doing. One friend in particular, I knew we were close when I was told that I could enter through the garage door instead of the front door.
Or we would ride bikes around town and just stop by friends’ houses to see if they wanted to join us.
What’s the difference between then and now?
A big difference is smartphones. With smartphones, kids have access to everything so why would they ever need to leave their rooms to find entertainment? Kids can sit on their phones all day and “interact” so they never have to leave home.
Sports and activities have also changed. In grade school, we went to school and then home. Yes, we did sports and activities but they weren’t year-round, so we had time to be kids. We also had Sundays off so you had a day to reset.
Yep, I am officially an old man complaining about the way things used to be but think about the anxiety kids feel now versus then?
I am not saying my childhood was idyllic but I did not have to worry about what someone posted. We did not take selfies, we just got scars to prove our stories.
Might not be a bad thing to put the phone down and go outside to interact with the real world.