A majority of these notifications are the teens communicating with their peers. That's how you get an absurd total like thousands a day.
Much of their socializing has moved online. Parents have effectively encouraged this trend, despite complaining about phone time.
People are far less willing to let their children just hang around the neighborhood, or walk to a friend's home these days, which forces communication through phone or desktop app instead.
> People are far less willing to let their children just hang around the neighborhood, or walk to a friend's home these days, which forces communication through phone or desktop app instead.
In America, often “walking to a friend’s home” is a 45-60 minute walk. Crossing multiple busy streets and the sad excuse suburbanites call “boulevards”. Suburban neighborhoods are often the worst as far as safety is concerned. Drivers don’t give af about pedestrians. Sidewalks non-existent or abruptly end.
Biking may reduce the travel time but still sharing those roads with highly irritable commuters finishing their 45-60 minute commute from hell. Bike infra in the suburbs? Paint up the road, add a sign indicating it’s a “shared lane” and that passes as “bike infrastructure” in some of these neighborhoods.
Unfortunately, this is not something new. It has been going on for decades. Want to know why the kid in the 90s-00s spent most of their time at home playing video games? That’s because it was the only thing to do in a suburban setting.
Unfortunately suburban sprawl in America has led to people becoming more and more spread out, so it's no surprise communication takes place over long (not easily walkable) distance, where nobody knows their neighbors because ultimately they need to get in their car to go anywhere, complete isolating themselves from the world around them.
Much of their socializing has moved online. Parents have effectively encouraged this trend, despite complaining about phone time.
People are far less willing to let their children just hang around the neighborhood, or walk to a friend's home these days, which forces communication through phone or desktop app instead.