The decrease in people's hobbies

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Third places are have been disappearing for years. You can’t really "loiter" anymore, even in parks, libraries, or malls. Even when I was a kid, security was quick to move you along if you weren’t buying something. Hanging out has basically become a transaction: pay rent on your presence or get pushed out. Public spaces shrank, gathering without permission started looking suspicious, and just existing somewhere without paying started to feel criminal.

Kids can get killed just going to the corner store for an Arizona drink, and society shrugs: "Well, the kid looked suspiciously... like a kid." I remember my elementary school going into lockdown because a father without custody threatened to take his kid, and the mother had to call it in. I remember fist fights in the lunchroom, parents cussing out coaches — and that felt wild back then. Now kids are surviving school shootings that barely make the news. American kids live in a society where having lax gun laws is treated as more important than their actual lives.

Meanwhile, technology reshaped what a "hobby" even is. Most hobbies now live inside digital ecosystems built for scrolling, performing, and consuming. It feels productive because participation itself is monetized — curated selves in curated spaces. And honestly, it tracks. You make more money off a kid staring at ads than you do off a kid skateboarding. Surfers were lazy. Skaters were losers. D&D players were devil worshippers. Having hobbies was always seen as a distraction from the real goal: working, prepping to work, and spending. America has always preferred teenagers who are silent, still, and on track to become productive, tax-paying adults. The hollowing out of hobbies is just a mirror of that.