Re: “Increased opportunities for home entertainment"
"I am looking at my kids - they simply no longer physically hang out with their peers."
Kids have less opportunity these days to escape from their parental controlled areas. In the 1950/60s we were expected to "go out and play" with our pals - and we had an area at least a mile in diameter to wander. Pre-teens would walk to school, go shopping, or go to Saturday cinema on their own. We didn't even have watches - but relied on public clocks, the sun, or rumbling stomachs to tell us when it was time to go home.
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twilight blaz'd,
I heeded not the summons:—happy time
It was, indeed, for all of us; to me
It was a time of rapture: clear and loud
The village clock toll'd six; I wheel'd about,
Proud and exulting, like an untired horse,
That cares not for its home.—All shod with steel,
We hiss'd along the polish'd ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din,
Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud,
The leafless trees, and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
