That is also a factor, but I think a stronger impact has people less meeting each other offline. Even before internet, TV already had this effect—the time you spend watching TV you don’t interact with other humans.
You get an opportunity to see other people’s parenting when you visit them at their homes. You lose this opportunity if each of you spends an evening by TV, or by a computer (even if you send messages to each other, you don’t see their interaction with their kids); if everyone goes on a vacation alone (because that is easier to organize, and everyone has different preferences); etc.
Living in big cities also changes things. If you live in a small village, your friends are mostly in the same village, and it takes 5 minutes to see each other. If you live in a big city and your friends are 30 minutes away, you probably won’t meet them just because you’d like to spend an hour outside. (My situation right now: I have small kids, my friends have small kids, it would be great to just drop them at the same playground and talk while observing them. But each of us has a playground next to them, which is easier than going 30 minutes by a car. If we lived in a village instead, the kids would naturally play at the same place.)
There is also a thing I observe in my country: before communism, there were many activities for people. During communism, everything spontaneous was illegal, but instead there were activities organized by the Communist Party. After communism, the activities organized by the Party stopped, but the original ones did not regenerate successfully. (Maybe because now they have to compete with TV and internet.) The few activities that exist for kids these days, are mostly organized by schools; which is good to have, but the problem is that the kids will meet there the same classmates they meet every day, instead of meeting strangers with a common interest, as used to be more frequent when I was a kid. For example, I used to attend a “math round” (voluntary extracurricular activity for math olympiad participants) when I was a kid; but as far as I know such thing simply does not exist here today.
I don’t want to make too big generalization, because I may live in a bubble. But seems to me that, generally, people meet less offline. You need to be strategic about this; most people are not.
That is also a factor, but I think a stronger impact has people less meeting each other offline. Even before internet, TV already had this effect—the time you spend watching TV you don’t interact with other humans.
You get an opportunity to see other people’s parenting when you visit them at their homes. You lose this opportunity if each of you spends an evening by TV, or by a computer (even if you send messages to each other, you don’t see their interaction with their kids); if everyone goes on a vacation alone (because that is easier to organize, and everyone has different preferences); etc.
Living in big cities also changes things. If you live in a small village, your friends are mostly in the same village, and it takes 5 minutes to see each other. If you live in a big city and your friends are 30 minutes away, you probably won’t meet them just because you’d like to spend an hour outside. (My situation right now: I have small kids, my friends have small kids, it would be great to just drop them at the same playground and talk while observing them. But each of us has a playground next to them, which is easier than going 30 minutes by a car. If we lived in a village instead, the kids would naturally play at the same place.)
There is also a thing I observe in my country: before communism, there were many activities for people. During communism, everything spontaneous was illegal, but instead there were activities organized by the Communist Party. After communism, the activities organized by the Party stopped, but the original ones did not regenerate successfully. (Maybe because now they have to compete with TV and internet.) The few activities that exist for kids these days, are mostly organized by schools; which is good to have, but the problem is that the kids will meet there the same classmates they meet every day, instead of meeting strangers with a common interest, as used to be more frequent when I was a kid. For example, I used to attend a “math round” (voluntary extracurricular activity for math olympiad participants) when I was a kid; but as far as I know such thing simply does not exist here today.
I don’t want to make too big generalization, because I may live in a bubble. But seems to me that, generally, people meet less offline. You need to be strategic about this; most people are not.