This but I also had no friends so I wouldn’t have anywhere to go if I was allowed

this is a thing! danah boyd is a researcher who has been studying social media for over a decade and in her 2014 book it’s complicated she argues that teenage social media “addiction” (which she also contends is like…..not actually a thing) is a result of the fact that “today’s teenagers have less freedom to wander than any previous generation” because “parents argue that these restrictions are necessary in an increasingly dangerous society, even though the data suggest that contemporary youth face fewer dangers than they did twenty years ago.”

as a result, teenagers are reclaiming these lost social spaces (which their parents and grandparents had in the form of mall hangouts, drive-in theaters, after school parking lots, etc) by using social media, where they can continue to “engage in crucial aspects of maturation: self-presentation, managing social relationships, and developing an understanding of the world around them,” aka stuff that teens are Supposed to be doing