Why Kids Don't Go Outside Anymore 

**CORRECTION** 0:32 Firearm deaths surpassed vehicle deaths in 2020 (recent data is unavailable) for ages 1-19 in the US. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761 Vehicle deaths were still the highest among children ages 1-17 by a tight margin www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/LeadingCauses.html

I stopped going outside, because everybody else my age stopped going outside. Walking on the sidewalk by myself, no trees, no grass, just concrete is a special kind of depressing.

It’s mind boggling how the boomers who grew up with outdoor childhoods, stereotypically known as valuing the good old days, loathe the thought of today’s children getting to live how they used to.

“We will build a bunch of roads for our cars in mind first and the people last.” “We will keep our children under surveillance literally 24/7 and expect them to be independent.” “Why isn’t anyone going outside anymore?”

Parents: Go Outside. Also Parents: If you go outside alone you will get kidnapped.

We constantly complain about the lack of independence in young adults, but they were conditioned to lack independence.

People are so worried about making sure kids live safe, they aren't allowed to live at all

I kid you not: I was in my mid-twenties when I was stopped by a cop and asked why I was walking, where I lived, where I was going, and which route I was taking. It was a nice spring day. I had a backpack of books and was trying to return it them to the local library, which was about a mile away. It creeped me out. When you can't even walk a mile to the library on a pretty day without being questioned by police, it kind of makes you not want to walk.

Kids are constantly yelled at by adults any time they are outside Whether it be a video where the police show up to a skate park, kids on a sidewalk playing and the people in the house over start screaming to get off their property. Kids aren’t allowed anywhere other than home and sometimes I can’t even say home is a guarantee

they really created the most unappealing outdoor environment for actually anything and have the nerve to ask why kids arent going outside anymore

"Kids these days just don't go outside anymore!" Meanwhile the closest park is 13 miles away with no sidewalks leading to said park

I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that “stranger danger” education in schools and the fear mongering of parents has created a plethora of problems for gen z and millennials and how they interact with others and that it has impacted the problems in loneliness, dating, and the friendship recession. We were taught to be incredibly fearful of each other when the statistics don’t call for it

1) Schools and their overwhelming amount of homework take up a lot of the kids time. 2)The commute to and from school can be long and draining. 3) Adding in extracurricular activities add to the time consumption. 4) Parents having a "my child is to be with me and nobody else. No one is being responsible for my child when not in school and I will not be responsible for anyone's child either" mentality. 5) Parents not wanting their children to mix 6) Some kids live in the middle of nowhere 7) There are no mom & pops diners, pizza parlors, ice-cream & soda parlors, community centers, burger joints, arcades or fun zones for kids to go to and hang out. 8) Any park in neighborhoods is usually only for younger kids so many older kids and teens are displaced. 9) If you are bullied, why would you leave your house to face more torment? 10) kids live far away from there schools, so any friend they make are at school only and it would be too costly and hard for them to meet up and hang out. 11) These suburbs/developments being built have nothing but houses as far as the eye can see, on super narrow roads with no space between them. When they should have clinics/doctors offices, multiple parks, movie theatre, convenience stores, mom & pops places, community centers, public pools, comic/dvd/games stores; something to bring some diversity and life to the landscape. 12) A lot of neighbor hoods have in recent years become very unsafe due to criminals, gangs, druggies, dogs. 13) A lot of the time when kids want to go to a local watering hole, a grotto, woodlands, fields, abandoned infrastructure - old people complain and call the cops. 14) People complain and call the cops on kids just playing in their yard, skateboarding or riding their bike. 15) religious people drag their kids to various faith based facilities and events and they may not get back until late at night, exhausted and drained. 16) A lot of fields and lots that kids could go to to play and hang out have been cornered off or turned into housing. 17) Parent buy expensive clothing items for their kids and the kids in turn cannot get them dirty as the parents would pitch a fit when having to clean them, so the kids just stay quiet inside. 18) The only thing the youth have for fun and interaction is there computers, tablets, cells, videogames and tv. 19) A lot of kids have allergies and other health concerns which make it difficult to be outside for too long. 20) Some environments are just too harsh to go outside in - dust, pollution, dangerous animals, heat, cold, rain. 21) Parents don't like to let their kids go outside unless their other siblings can come. which poses challenges when if the other sibling is opposite gender or much younger, so it may be better to stay home. Likewise, some older kids are forced to stay home and keep house/ babysit their younger siblings. 22) A lot of clubs and activities have been hijacked. So kids would rather stay home and avoid that headache. 23) A lot of clubs, activities and programs have become severely underfunded and/or overpriced, so things have been left to degrade to sub par levels of fun and safety. 24) Even if there is somewhere to go, its overcrowded and/or too far away.

I remember being kicked out of the house because “playing video games all day is unhealthy” but I wasn’t allowed to leave our property. So what was I supposed to do? Rub a stick in the dirt?

Getting arrested for picking your kids up on foot instead of in a car is.. It feels illegal.

These same ppl who say "kids don't go outside anymore" when they are literally the ones that continue to contribute to ruin everything for fng kids to get outside.

A lot of kids are so insecure and self conscious they don’t even want to be seen outside or suffer with severe social anxiety with no help to get things better. Also they just want to play video games all day like I do to escape reality.

i hate modern american society

they made the outside hostile and wonder why their children won't play outside

I'm 25 and going outside still often feels "wrong." I had a few neighborhood kids around growing up but by the time I was 12 going outside was mostly only for a walk, bike, or skateboard around the empty neighborhood roads. The only interaction was a weird stare from the neighbors or a car passing by.

The world is honestly horrible right now. Kids have depression because they aren't allowed to go outside because 1. Parents are afraid of them going out. 2. The own governments laws about it It's absolutely insane that kids cannot go into some fast food restaurants without parent supervision etc. ontop of all that kids under the age 16-18 are bejng banned off social media making it even worse. Scientist wonder why our children are so depressed and have such fewer friends in this generation but the world has been making it so hard for them to socialize at all.

Getting arrested for having your kids play in your backyard is insane

One upside of living in a lower income area is a lot of kids still play outside.

Grew up in a suburb where there was literally nowhere to go outside The sidewalk just ended at the entrance to the neighborhood, so there was no pedestrian connection to the rest of town, and if you wanted to get to the nearest (stroad) place with both traffic crossings and buildings other than houses, you'd be walking for a mile and a half on busy streets with no sidewalk. There were no benches in the neighborhood, so... You can't even sit outside unless you're at your own house. And then it's just a nothing-lawn. I'm thankful I had a few thousand square feet of forest between the rows of houses, most neighborhoods don't even have that... Blew my mind when I went to college and could **walk** from where I lived to a place to eat, and to where my friends lived, and to classes

I used to love going outside when everyone else was playing and walking around the streets. Now that no one does that anymore, either sits inside on their devices or simply don't want to, I stopped going out. I wish this was an issue we worked on more effectively and often.

I actually can't believe that kids can't even be alone in a park in the us. I can't believe it dude!!! american children are prisoners!! what!!! land of the free and you can't even walk places!!!!!

My parents always complain about how I don’t go outside meanwhile I can’t walk around the APARTMENT COMPLEX I LIVE IN without being scolded

Let's be honest, if your kids don't have independence as children they're going to have problems as adults kids nowadays have been conditioned to have dependents on their parents. That's the reality we need to show these kids that they can be independent.

I feel like this whole issue got worse when the pandemic passed. It really killed a lot of people’s social skills

Pokemon is a child independence simulator

"Why dont kids go outside?" *does nothing to keep the public safe*

For those watching in Europe etc, I think it really depends where in the US you live. We live in the Midwest, in a safe suburb filled with kids, parks, & bike paths. My kids happily played outside in our neighborhood when they were elementary school age. Now that they are older (12/13) they ride their bikes to parks, the library, the store, etc. I feel very blessed to live where we live.

What always gets me is that looking back at my childhood, I have so many good memories from just walking home from school with my buddies. The walk home was about half an hour, and we'd talk, play, maybe take a detour, stop by a shop for candy, what have you. So many memories. On school buses at least kids sit together, but if you're driven, chances are you ride the car alone with your parents. Kids who get driven to and from school miss out on so many experiences.

Getting arrested for picking up your kids on foot is something i never thought i would read

I'm 67, and I can damn well tell you why it is. There is nowhere left to go. When I was a kid, we went swimming at the old abandoned gravel pit. We rode our dirt bikes through the woods. Us kids in the neighborhood took an abandoned lot and mowed it, cleaned it up, and used it as our neighborhood baseball field. We didn't need no stinkin' Parks Service! In my home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan, ALL OF THOSE PLACES ARE GONE!

I stopped going outside because there is barely anything even cars, and walking in a small sidewalk with few trees and no life around is really depressing

1:25 Not gonna lie, that Bus driver is a good man for protecting the children.

A lot of the times it isn't the kids fault that they don't go outside much, it's the parents fault. Change my mind.

Our society currently treats young people worse than animals.

I live in Japan and I’m in middle school, everyone walks or bikes to school and even elementary school students walk to school! And there’s always places for kids to hang out in Japan. Even adults bike to work or anywhere. People only use cars if they’re going somewhere far, lol

I want to go outside so bad, I prefer nature over devices, but my parents get worried about kidnappers, so I can’t go ANYWHERE without supervision, and they barely go outside so that kinda leads to me barely going outside. Trust me, I'd go ride my bike all day rather than being on this phone typing right now. I just feel really isolated from the outside world and it makes me feel sad.

As a european, that news pages was trully shocking!! You cant let your kids play in YOUR backyard??? You cant WALK your kids from school??? Land of freedom my @ss.

Like even at college, no one talks to each other. My mom was surprised that no one in the dorms knows their neighbors. We've been raised that way, we grew up as kids not allowed outside and dont know how to talk to each other

There's a big difference between being a kid in the 80s and 90s compared to today. In the 90s, I was born in 88, i could walk or ride my bicycle 4 streets over by myself to my friends house, stay outside all day playing baseball, or kickball in a public street and never worried about anything. I could go at 8 am and not come home until 6 pm for dinner. We knew right at 6 to get home. Only then would mom be worried and calling neighborhood parents asking if i was their house. Sure, we had shady neighbors on occasion, but we were taught to stay away from them. Now kids can't walk two houses down the street without some suspicious looking van riding through the neighborhood, shootouts in the street, homeless and druggies wandering like zombies everywhere. I wouldnt want to be outside either.

Its sad knowing some kids cant even ride a bike anymore 😢

The last time I walked into my local library with my 19 year old little brother, the librarian yelled at us from the circulation desk, declaring that teenagers could not come in without supervision or written permission from a gaurdian. And they wonder why kids are the way they are.

Some of those suburban vistas depress me. People spend so much time and money on their LAWNS, but there hardly aren't any TREES! Also, the American idea that public transportation is only for the poor is so ridiculous. Americans are too car-dependent. WAY too car-dependent.

Finally, someone talking about this issue! Im 14, and I personally wish i could just.. go more places. But i can't drive yet, and also, my parents don't want me out much due to the danger. It took a fair amount of convincing to get my parents to let me walk outside of our neighborhood. Keep in mind that my parents are some of the most chill parents I've ever met.

The reason I never go out anymore is because I was never allowed to make friends outside of school. The only people I could hang out with were the kids right next to me. I could never go across the street. I couldn’t leave the property. So when those kids moved away, and my childhood friends and I moved apart from each other, I had nothing else to do. I don’t even have chalk to draw on the sidewalk with. None of the surrounding houses have kids my age. So I’m stuck.

I’m 14. It drives me up the WALL when my parents ask me to go do something outside, but I live in the suburbs/city area. What the HELL do you want me to do. I can’t drive, I can’t go anywhere, they won’t let me go farther than the stop sign alone because the actual places like arcades and shit like that are FAR. I can’t bike my way to school as he said, adults are fearful. ADULTS ARE THE PROBLEM. I’m shy and hate talking to people, I hate going anywhere without my phone. WE ARE DOOMED.

OMFG what were those clips of those boomers just having melt downs over people sugesting bikes and other modes of transportation 😭 like they sound like a bunch of preschoolers agruing over what name they should give the new class pet like omfg CALM DOWN let here people sleep?? Did biking kill your grandma or smth? 😭💀

It is not just kids. My bestie from the US visited me and one evening we did a nice leisure stroll around the city (I live in Europe). People were sitting on benches, etc. She looked at me wide-eyed and said, " We don't do this." I looked at her, confused. "What? Take strolls?" "That too, but we don't go outside after dark...that's way too dangerous." It is so sad, really.

Im from Brazil, i always see kids in the streets, being happy, walking to the school. (Sorry my broken english)

Finally someone brings light to this problem, if adults want kids to go outside then build a place kids want to be. Suburbia is a pretty boring place outside Edit: a lot of neighborhoods (not all) only have small playgrounds, which can be fun, but older kids would rather be at places like skateparks. Normally a lot of these place are built further away from suburbs so teens would rather just stay inside.

No wonder there's a loneliness crisis in young people. When your infrastructure, laws and helicopter parents discourage you from doing things outside and experience things at a young age you tend to not grow and develop social skills properly, which makes your 20's very difficult. And I feel most people are having to spend their 20's realizing things they could've figured out and should've been taught in their teens. Also, I think it's part of the reason why so many kids wanna go away to college despite the debt while also not knowing what they want to do. It really is mainly for the social aspect, it's their last chance to make up for what they couldn't get out of high school or growing up in general.

This might sound silly or off-topic, but I think this is why Animal Crossing resonated with so many people. During a time where these issues were at their worst in lockdown, people were given an opportunity to start a new life (granted, a virtual one), build a perfect town where everybody was together, and have the ability to easily get to places on foot. Animal Crossing was and is the epitome of the good that society is missing.

As a teenager who lives in a town so small it can be considered a village I agree 10000% with everything you said. All me and my best friend can do that isn't on the internet is shop at the nearby doller general and go to the park which is fun Don't get me wrong but it gets old quick and for a while I was terrified about going anywhere without an adult (I'm less afraid about this now but still)

Getting arrested for walking with your kids is crazy Edit: after seeing all the replies, I’ll never take walking freely for granted again. I grew up and live in the Philippines where walking to anywhere you want is normal (well, as long as you’re in one of the developed suburb communities or cities), very similar to our neighbors in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and basically every Asian country.

I stopped going outside by myself when I had the cops called on me for being AT THE PARK alone when i was 12. Being brought home the 10 blocks to my house by a cop for being at the park was kinda the last straw. A child just wanting to hang out on the swings being told by law enforcement I couldn’t be there??

You’re very observant and insightful. I’m 64. I always thought many of the things you said but was never as articulate and productive as you! I recently sold my overpriced and depressing suburban home, got lucky and moved to a small farm with acreage. Cars are dangerous as you say but people still don’t operate them like farm equipment. Thanks for the great job, young man!

my mom. probably wouldn't let me go outside. i feel like she like never lets me have any independence lmao but even then there's like NOTHING TO DO outside in my neighborhood

Millennial here. I often run into these conversations with people my age and older about how “young people are this and that” and it’s wildly frustrating. YOUNG PEOPLE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONDITIONS THEY’RE BORN INTO. It amazes me how the generation(s) that created or perpetuate said conditions love to pass blame onto the generation(s) most affected by their decision-making. It’s happening to us and Gen-Z hard right now in nearly every aspect of our lives. To the older people out there: Don’t build a kid a sandbox and then get angry at the kid for playing in it.

“Go play outside!” The outside they made:

It's sad that kids don't go outside and they're controlled by older generations that are paranoid about letting them go outside for even five seconds.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this

the past few years i've been looking at those "children at play, drive slow" signs and saying to myself...where are these said children

Arrested because their 9 y.o. was unattended in a public park!?!?!?! The government doesnt even CARE about your KIDS that they will arrest you for giving them ROOM to enjoy A NICE DAY AT THE PARK alone! We are in such dystopian times. Its so unbearably pointless.

Thank you for bringing attention to this problem!

Tl;DR: it's not as simple as telling someone to "go outside", it's more about making the outside more accessible to said someone.

I remember one time in middle school one kid missed the bus and used his bicycle. He was reprimanded rather than praised for coming to school.

I swear the parents just picking up their kids getting arrested pisses me off so much

I used to walk to the bus stop, school was miles away I'd have to wake up crazy early to get there on time, but after school up until covid (i was 15 when covid happened) I'd go outside, i played sports, rode bikes, climbed trees etc. growing older I enjoy hiking and camping, i go for walks, skateboard, there's just about nothing more valuable than time spent outside, it's amazing.

I’m so glad someone is finally addressing these things

The second I sold my car to get around via bike skateboard as an adult it really made me realize how pressured you are to have a car

I'm 25, and remember at 10-12, the highlight of my day was hearing the doorbell and the kids of the neighborhood asking my parents if me and my sister could come out to play. As long as we'd did our homework, we could go. We'd play hopscotch, tag, jump rope, one of the boys taught us how to play with Pokemon cards, and gave us two (I still have my Jolteon and Charizard.) We played without supervision, came home when it got dark, and not a single person worried about getting arrested.

Thank you for sharing this and standing up for children and teens. As a young teenager people always act like I never go outside. But do you just expect me to go into my backyard and kick a soccer ball around by myself? Then I’m also not able to walk to the park near me because it’s too far away! Thank you so much for addressing this issue. Keep going with ur yt channel ur doing amazing.

I grew up rural/suburban and we spent our time outside playing and exploring the woods. We hung out at friends houses and listened to music. When we got older we played paintball and rode dirt bikes. We made real life connections and developed crushes. The world is a magical place if you put down your phone and explore it.

Parents really be super strict and not ever allow you to leave the house and then have the nerve to ask you why you dont go outside...

I love that whenever i talk about how my parents are hypocrites for always hovering around me after they talk about the crazy shit they did as kids their first argument is "things are different now, you just didn't want to be outside." No, what I didn't want was to be locked to a 2 block radius around my house and allowed to explore and interact with others. "I used to stay out until the streetlights came on!" If I did that i would get grounded. I was actively punished for going out and being social and now my parents wonder why i don't like people and I'm a shut in.

When i was younger all i wanted to do was get older but now all i want is to go back to the times of playing outside. What you said about people had more friends, a bright eye when you wake up in the morning. Its sad that this will never happen again in America. The freeway is the most sad thing i see because all we see in the whole state full of roads, and concrete.

as an immigrant who is new in the us, one of the worst sides of the country is that city designs are very bad. back in my country everything was close and i did not really have to know how to drive a car, but in here it is almost impossible to go outside and do something if you do not know how to drive.

Whenever I go outside, I never see teenagers like me. It’s always little kids. 💀

Social media is another large part of the problem. Parents spend so much time on social media and constantly see stories about people being murdered or dying in an accident outside. Then as a result, they become too paranoid to allow their children to do anything alone.

As a teenager who has been homeschooled for the past 7 years, (think COVID lockdown but for 7 years now) this really hits close to home. For years now the highlight of my week would be getting to leave my house, even for normal stuff that most people don’t want to do like going to the grocery store would make my entire week. Couple that with the fact that we have instacart, DoorDash, etc, and that my mother works pretty much 24/7, I wouldn’t be able to leave my home for months no matter how badly I wanted to. It was just the same mundane being in my house 24/7 and at some point I begin to fall into even greater depression, loneliness, and suicidal ideation. My bedroom had turned from somewhere to relax after getting home from school, to a place that I resented. It felt like psychological torture. Now I barely know how to talk to people, am extremely self conscious, and overall just fucked up because I was isolated for the most important years of development that I’ll ever get in my entire life, as well as basically wasting my teenage years away being a shut-in against my will. The US has gotten to the point where without a license and a car you can hardly experience life at all, and people wonder why kids and teens aren’t leaving their homes when all they can do is sit in their yard. It’s somewhat comforting to know that I’m not the only person that’s experienced this, but at the same time it’s sad that anybody has to at all. For those going through similar circumstances, I hope things will improve for you.

Thank you for pointing these things out.

Alot of this is why VR is so appealing to teens and kids in general... it gives them a "physical" space to socialize and play in with out having to leave their homes.

It's terrible that you can get arrested and have your kids taken for letting them play in your yard unsupervised, or picking them up on foot, but there's still a ton of horrific cases where people straight up abuse their kids and have them live in horrible conditions, and nobody does anything till the kid's name is on a headline and their body's gone cold.

At the age of 16 I have now started going outside more with my friends. I’m becoming more happy, having new friends and going out with them is freeing from the entrapment of home

Very well thought-through and lots of people needed to hear this. Thank you. Keep em comin!!

Thank god to that one kid in every suburb with a basketball hoop infront of their house.

Our modern world wasn't designed for children in mind. Our capitalist priority is commercial enterprise.

Grew up in a rural community in the early 90s, I had a ton of fun running around a giant patch of land with my cousins. I lived right next to my aunts and uncles, my grandmother and grandfather. Then we moved 30 minutes away to a quiet suburb. I still played outside with my neighbors but not as much. My mom still let me walk all the way from one end of the neighborhood to the other side, unsupervised, because we chose to trust first instead of distrusting everyone. Then, more people moved in. More houses and subdivisions. The speed limit just outside my neighborhood is 55 mph. The sidewalk had to be put behind a row of trees, an entire ditch away from the road itself. But the sidewalk is also the bike path. The only place I can feasibly walk to and back is the gas station. The one time I tried walking much farther into town, my legs cramped up bad from the inclines and it took me over an hour round-trip. I used to think I'd go for walks to stay in shape but I can only speed-walk around the same empty streets so many times before I'm sick of it.

As a kid who goes outside i can confirm its a deselate world with no people to be seen.

The 6yo across the street from me plays outside constantly but no one to play w so he hangs out w me on my porch and we chat. He says his friends aren’t allowed but his mom cant stifle his freedom😅 he has confidence and self esteem.

I live in the suburbs, and there ain't SHIT to do outside. If you go literally 0.2 miles from my house roads, roads, and even more roads. It's awful when I go outside there's some liminal space crap going on. it's creepy as hell.

I actually miss going outside it reminds me when I was much younger. Playing outside with the neighbors kids until night comes with only entertainment and games that we had to make up. I made much more friends too we all get along (or at least try too lol). Now I’m a teenager and rarely see anyone outside. Not allowed to leave the house unless an adult comes with me. The outside looks to bare and depressing with the lack of people that couldn’t help myself to do anything. If I were to ask my friends to go outside with me they said they don’t have a ride and what not, even though i can use bike to get other there I cant go outside still since my family grow me into the mindset that the outside is scary with bunch of kidnappers. The city I live has so much cars with monochrome colors which often is depressing too. I wish I was still outgoing when I was younger.

I honestly hate how much the media focuses on negativity. There are still plenty of people that go to parks and its abnormal to not see atleat 1 person jogging. And people are addicted to making these weird edits on how society is "crumbling". No, its literally the same as its always been. Atleast from where i grew up in the USA. Obesity rates make it seem that the USA is a country built on mobility scooters and big macs, but when u actually *go* there, you would get a lot more reality than some graph. We kids are still very active and dont get me wrong, there are still people that make their whole life revolve around being lonely and not trying to get better.

Props to that school bus driver for preventing those cars from potentially running the kids over. 👏🏼

The parents getting arrested makes my blood boil

I'm a 13 year old boy and my neighborhood doesn't even have a park, instead we just have pits full of lava rock, when me and my friends got some leftover wood that construction workers weren't using from a nearby construction site, we built a massive fort in the pit of lava rocks, it had two rooms, chairs, and even a roof, then the town had to get involved and make us take it down even though it was on public property, then me and my friends just had to sit in our front yards with nothing to do because the town cared about their stupid pit of rocks more then the citizens of the town being productive and healthy, and I was 12 when that happened