Bikes vs 4chan
When kids are left to roam wherever they want, where do they roam?
A common refrain among non-millennials (how’s that for an euphemism for ‘old folks’?) is that kids today do not have the freedom to explore like they used to back in the days. A frequent motif is the freedom to just get on a bike and roam the countryside and/or local urban areas all alone, without any particular notice given to parents or anyone else. This roaming was just a thing kids did, and often, and without safety equipment — or for that matter any concern for potential injuries in any part of the process of long-distance local exploring. As long as they were back for dinner, everything was alright — and sometimes missing a dinner or two didn’t amount to too much worry. It was just understood that this was something that kids did; like domestic cats, they would return for food and sleep when the time came.
Such a recount of times past is incomplete without a lengthy reminder of how these were the times before cell phones, If anything went wrong when the kids out and about, they’d have no fast way of contacting their parents — or, worse, an ambulance. There were landlines, of course, but in case of emergency, these are slow, and gaining access to one requires asking the owner for permission. Yet, somehow, this was not a cause for concern — parents trusted their kids to not do anything (too) stupid, and it was implicitly understood that if disaster struck, anyone who was around to notice would take appropriate action without hesitation.
The recipe for dealing with any worry or uncertainty about where the kids were was to simply not. They would be home when they got home, and in the meantime, they would have formative experiences, and get some healthy exercise to boot. In the end, these things would turn out just fine.
Given that these stories are told by those former kids who are still with us, there is something of a selection bias as to the effects on health and longevity of these excursions. But as a common motif, it says something about our present condition. It does so because it is supposed to be contrasted with the very same present condition, where parents are worrying all the time, where there are never a single moment where the kids are left to explore the world (big or small) on their own, or worse, even let out of sight for extended periods of time outside of school.
Compared to ages past, kids are living in a highly regulated panopticon where every move is planned, monitored and evaluated. Nothing is beneath notice, every move is scrutinized. At no point are kids to be left alone to be kids, like in the old days.
And thus, their development as human beings is stifled.
There is a core of truth to this way to present history, to be sure. Especially in the more dystopian of American suburbs, where there is no public transit, no public places, and nowhere to go that isn’t by means of being driven there by your parents. Some of these places are even described as actively hostile to humanity, and there is definitely room for improvement.
But.
The fact that this version of events is told and retold by non-millennials means that it misses an important aspect of what the kids are up to these days. Mainly, what kids are up to these days, unbeknownst to their parents. I speak, of course, of the things they do in their online lives.
Just as kids of yore ventured forth into the unknown on their bikes, kids of today venture forth into the unknown of computers. For many parents, this is where their understanding of what their kids do begins and ends: the kids sit in front of their computers, for long stretches of time, doing obscure things that are at once both incomprehensible and inscrutable. Images move across the screen, but what they may mean remains a parental mystery.
In most cases, the general category of “computer things” can be more precisely defined as “computer games”. Games are fun, and kids like fun things. But as time goes on and they get older (which it does and which they do), they move on to other things. And like the mythic biking kids of old, they get to explore these things all on their own without parental supervision or worry. Whatever these things might be, and wherever.
The internet is big. A lot bigger than the local countryside. And memes move faster than bikes.
What they find during their online roaming varies, but almost always falls within certain predictable general categories. There is some porn (teens will find a way), some information about computer games, and some sort of social sphere where they can express themselves in discussions on topics they are interested in. That last category being the most important, as these spheres have the potential of becoming the kids’ most significant sites of knowledge and socialization. In terms of impressionable youth, this is where their impressions come from.
It is a common enough parental advice to try to ensure that the kids do not fall in with the wrong crowds. You become who you hang out with, after all, and any concerned parent would want their kids to hang out with other kids who have healthy interests, good manners and some measure of virtue in their everyday being. Conversely, troublemakers and persons of questionable character are to be avoided, lest they rub off and cause untold amounts of trouble along the road. Everything else being equal, the friend who helps mend a flat tire is better than the one who enjoys flattening them.
If you are of the younger generation, your first association here might be 4chan, a place not known for its emphasis on clean and healthy living. It is by no means the only site of its kind, but in terms of places you do not want as primary sources of socialization for young people, it is ruthlessly and actively undesirable. The fact that there are more of its kind only adds to the worry.
Non-millennials reminiscing about the good old days where kids could find some alonetime to play and figure things out on their own have a point. Creating spaces where kids and teens can develop on their own terms (with appropriate levels of adult intervention) is critical to facilitating a healthy transition from young to grown-up. But we must not let the romanticized telling and retelling of the past as a period of free-roaming young bikesters get in the way of our understanding of the present: a period where millions of young ones are left to roam the information superhighway in any way they see fit, exploring any ideas they find interesting (up to and including neo-nazism), and in a most literal of senses left alone to their own devices.
If you need a place to start looking for reasons for the popularity of alt-right modes of thinking among young ones, this is it. While I am not suggesting that large-scale of construction of bike lines would solve this problem, as someone who spent a non-trivial amount of time biking around the local countryside, I would heartily interject that it certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea. Preferably alongside interesting places to go to.
[Shameless self-promotion: you can find most of my writings listed here.]
