There was the Great Satanic Panic in the 1980s and 90s, and there were more and more places where you need a car to get anywhere. Urban crime, or at least the perception of it, also did its part. It started much earlier than the smartphone era in the US and the UK, but there's still parts of the Nordics and other places where kids go out to socialise and play in the forests or fields or whatever's around today.
Tech on the one hand has given kids a new way to socialise, even if you can't meet up in person for whatever reason, you can still video call and play minecraft together. The other side of that is all the advertising and tracking and addiction-fuelling. The particular combination of always with you, always notifying you, and turning the addiction-generators up to 11 that you get on a smartphone seems to be a whole other level though.
I wanted to make another point but I've got a ping because someone has posted on discord, sorry brb.
I mean, technology as such wasn't born together with the internet.
People have been talking about the "death of the third place" for a while, now.
I remember growing up in the 80s and 90s, in a suburb with forest and playground in walking distance, there were less and less kids outside, or for shorter duration.
TV, cable TV and video games just killed everything.
As people became "less local" as in, you didn't know the people in your street, it meant that unaccompanied kids could be more of a shit without their parent's finding out.
More old people getting or feeling threatened meant that something must be done. ASBOs were one thing, but also the feat that your kids might be mixed up in that sort of stuff, meant that free-range kids were the preserve of "seen to be failing" families
Could this have died due to tech?