
City children four times more lonely than those in countryside - laurex
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/06/city-children-four-times-lonely-countryside-finds-study/
======
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
My pet theory: Cities foster loneliness. The bigger the city, the worse it
gets. You avoid eye contact with people. You assume anyone trying to talk to
you wants money from you or sell you something. You are on your way somewhere,
in a hurry, and have no time to chat. You want to chat but don’t want to
bother anyone.

~~~
mikeyouse
For children especially, cities can be tough. You can't exactly "play" in your
frontyard if you live on a busy street. There's less serendipity and
unstructured play time when you have to go to a public park or another
location to get together.

~~~
smileysteve
There was another hacker news article that has the opposite conclusions; Poor
people in cities do play in their streets.

But anecdotally, I know of families who live on a street where cars routinely
go 45mph to get to the neighborhood inside a neighborhood, so can't play in
the street in the suburbs.

~~~
wahern
I visited Vancouver, BC recently, including a few days driving around. I was
amazed at how _slow_ people drove there. I mean, it's really only slow
compared to the NASCAR driving typical across the U.S. But it was really
_enjoyable_ and much less stressful.

I remember when Americans drove like that, before we rescinded the national
55mph cap. Over the past few decades things have gotten so bad here. Urban,
suburban, and rural areas. Small neighborhoods and highways. Both coasts and
everywhere in between. We just drive ridiculously fast.

I think of all the roads I walked (to meet friends, to get to school, to play
catch) in Illinois, Florida, Alabama, D.C., and Virginia.... I've been back to
all those places and they're _way_ more dangerous.

------
programmarchy
Children in the countryside have access to social media, too, so blaming it on
that seems disingenuous, while ignoring the massive cultural shifts occurring
in the EU.

------
AngryData
Most kids in cities aren't allowed to just go fuck off outside by themselves
for long periods of time, people consider it dangerous and don't allow it. In
the countryside it is a different story where if their kid(s) go outside and
don't come back for 6 hours, no big deal. Being cramped up in buildings all
day every day is mentally stressful whether people realize it or not, we
simply did not evolve under such conditions and it wasn't even a possibility
to avoid the outdoors and other random people until pretty recently.

There is also other factors like increased pollution, including noise and
light pollution which may also have an impact on people's mental state over
time.

------
yhoneycomb
I wonder if this corrects for ease of public transportation and how muc
independence the parents give the kids? I’d imagine it would be pretty lonely
if you always saw people outside but could never actually go out and play.

~~~
techopoly
Yes in addition to the lack of a front or back yard as mentioned in another
comment, there's an increasing trend in city parenting to schedule the entire
lives of their children, including "play dates". Not that play dates are
inherently bad, but if you grow up with someone making all the social (and
other) decisions for you, you kind of miss out on learning self-sufficiency
and the ability to socialize with strangers.

More suburban and rural parenting tends toward unstructured time, in my
observation. This likely does have a lot to do with the home setup being more
conducive to spontaneity.

