NOT GOING OUT

Is a misspent youth a thing of the past? How teens and twentysomethings became the homebody generation  

- Gaby Hinsliff

HARRIET'S TEENAGE SONS were so sociable as small children that she wasn't prepared for what she calls the "hermit phase". Around the age of 13 or 14, both boys started holing up in their bedrooms. Although they were avidly gaming and chatting with their friends online, real-world socialising seemed to fade away.

"They weren't at all interested in seeing their friends; they just wanted to be left alone. It's as if something clicked," says Harriet (not her real name), a hospice manager living in a small town. Though she tried not to make an issue of it, their withdrawal bothered her: a healthy teenage life, she feels, should involve a bit of adventurous pushing of boundaries. When she suggested her sons go into town with friends, as she had done at their age, they balked. "The youngest wouldn't because apparently 'that's not what mates do', and he wouldn't go on his own because that looks sad." But mostly, she says, they were baffled by the idea of hanging around shopping malls with friends when they could buy anything they want online. "Everything encourages them to be at home - phones, gaming, amazing TV, stuff being delivered to your house." Though Harriet doesn't think lockdown caused the boys' behaviour, it may have prolonged the habit of socialising online, she says.

What she's describing is a phenomenon many parents of teenagers will recognise: a seemingly more insular, home-based, slower way of growing up, persisting in some cases well into the late teens and early 20s. One in three younger Britons are socialising less, according to the struggling nightlife giant Rekom, which last month announced its intention to call in administrators.