The headline didn’t say “reshaping the cousin experience”. It said “childhood”. Unless we’re ready to say any change is dramatic, this is the type of unprovable puffery in a headline that Betteridge’s Law was made for.
FWIW, it’s true of my kids too. But growing up, my cousins were in a different country and I wasn’t close. So my kids didn’t have an experience much different than mine.
It is still important to a lot of kids that live close by and even those that rarely saw each other (like mine due to similar isolation) still learned from the experience when we were together.
Yes, headlines are meant to grab your attention, but equating this one with the garbage that usually gets a quick Betteridge Law link is a bit drastic.
People pondering the societal implications of rapid population decline is very relevant. I'm not going to get too upset over the title.
Ok, fair, maybe I'm overreacting to it - i find headlines like that annoying.
If you have ever seen the early Seven Up movies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_series) ) - the sheer mass of Baby Boom children all growing up together is incredible. No doubt peer influence was crucial for many of them.
But humans grow up in many situations, including remote farms, small villages full of old people, etc. Lack of cousins or same-age peers might be more common now, but it's been happening forever.
FWIW, it’s true of my kids too. But growing up, my cousins were in a different country and I wasn’t close. So my kids didn’t have an experience much different than mine.