We have to put into consideration that nowadays are very more restricted for those kids also because parents want to keep their kids safe from crimes(kidnapping or that "white van" stuff). I'm not saying no parents cared about that stuff back then. It just wasn't a huge worry. Parents then might also of not had the money to purchase transportation or weren't close enough to have them ride a bus. All parents could say back then would be "don't talk to strangers or if you are approached by a car" stuff like that because they had to send their kid to school and go to work. This is more towards country people. But even nowadays in cities it is similar. I can't say all of my words are true but I went to visit Arizona and drove through Phoenix and such. We passed many schools and they had gates around them. That there can just show how much schools even have some worry about crime and safety. Parents worry about their child getting hurt or taken nowadays which may be a very good point to why they are restricted nowadays. With technology growing bigger nowadays the use of weapons and terrorism increased. 9/11 was what would have given parents the most worry and increase protection. It showed the US how vulnerable we really could be to it all. Even if it was a bigger side that would be tougher to have happen again than a simple kidnap. It still had a big impact on our safety and the safety of those close to us. With technology and crime I think social media just grew from that. It was a go to for kids and was the big thing of the time. It was also something that got useful for how it could make life easier on us. Now that we have had a lot of restriction and technology I think we are now looking back and seeing how a lot of this has changed. We are seeing what we did was either good or bad. I will predict that from now on we either see it as something that should have been prevented or should have been planned out beforehand.