Jonathan Haidt

So you get cable TV, you get 24 hour news cycles.

So in the 90s, for a lot of reasons, we freak out and we no longer think it's OK for an eight year old to be outside unsupervised by an adult.

Now it's more like 10 or 11 is when kids get that level of freedom.

So here's a big reason why.

It's not just the change in television and cable TV.

The biggest reason, I now believe, is the loss of trust in everyone else.

So there's a great phrase from a British sociologist, Frank Ferretti.

He talks about the collapse of adult solidarity.

So even in the 70s, when there was a lot of crime...

You know, if I wiped out on my bicycle and I got hurt, my friend could go knock on a door and say, hey, can you call my mother?

But we begin to lose trust in each other.

We begin life moves away from the streets and moves indoors as we get air conditioning and television.

We don't know our neighbors anymore.

That's why we don't trust our kids to be let out.

So there's a whole backstory that really begins in the 80s and into the 90s in which we took away the play based childhood.

Oh, and at the exact same time, the Internet arrives.

And so, you know, we don't want to let our kids out.

But this new Internet thing, the kids love it.

They're sitting in the room on a computer.

What could happen?