I think it’s probably a result of other problems causing people to be depressed and then being depressed they stay home and doomscroll.

First, because we have fewer kids as a whole, and those kids live further apart, it’s harder for kids and teens to just meet up. Add in the resume padding sports and lessons and homework and you’ll find a time crunch as well. When I was a kid, you had the entire weekend to do whatever whenever and packs of kids would get on their bikes and roam the neighborhood stopping at whatever house they wanted to. The opportunity to do that isn’t there anymore.

Extreme safety-ism has also cut into this because— often by law— parents are not allowed to let their kids out of sight. And in more liberal areas this can include in the child’s own yard.

We’ve also spent the last couple decades creating a “therapeutic culture” that teaches kids that they should focus on their feelings above everything else. Then the same culture told them that the slightest bad feeling would be a crisis that would last forever “your body keeps score,” so you’ll be affected by whatever “trauma” hurts your delicate feelings.