Sometimes the sound of cicadas, or a few children in a yard, is enough to bring a whole afternoon back. Marbles. Hopscotch. Games that required another child's body in the same place as yours. Nobody scheduled it. You went outside because that was where the day was.
The screen is not the villain by itselfLink to this heading
Children now grow up with TikTok, YouTube, and games that are genuinely good at holding attention. The loss is not that a screen exists. The loss is what no longer has to happen for a child to feel occupied. You can spend an afternoon without negotiating, without being bored, without learning that another person is allowed to want a different game.
Boredom used to push children toward each other. A feed removes the push. The child is not lonely in the dramatic sense. They are accompanied by something that never asks them to wait their turn.
What is worth keepingLink to this heading
I do not think the answer is to confiscate every device and announce that the past was pure. A lot of those afternoons were also hot, unfair, and dull. The part worth keeping is the presence of other people in the same physical game, long enough for a child to learn patience, teasing, repair, and the particular happiness of being chosen for a team.
If a childhood is only a sequence of private screens, something quiet goes missing, and it is hard to explain later why the yard mattered. Keep some of the yard. The screen can stay. It should not be the only place a child grows up.