Declining childhood independence over the years (%):
Driven less by internet brainrot, and more by media "stranger danger" as well as loss of wild spaces near homes for kids to roam and explore unaccompanied by an adult
The whole article is worth a read
I suspect the world is a lot safer now than it was then, but everyone's scared of everyone else, so ๐คทโโ๏ธ
I think that's the crux of it: breakdown of societal trust
I wonder if those are related. Trusting people are easy to exploit, but that would imply that things like kidnapping children are crimes of opportunity, and that is a horrible thought.