: Go to school. Go to church. Go to Sunday School and youth groups and after-school activities. Take the bus where you’re going even though other people are on the bus. Things like social skills need to be developed, but so do immune systems. Talking to people for the most part required face-to-face. Kids were expected to be able to talk to adults. Yes, people talked on the phone. But, phone-time was limited for most of us. There was only one phone in the house, for goodness sake. I don’t remember anyone hiding in their basement playing games by himself. For weeks at a time. Which does bring up something else: Go outside! We drove our parents nuts, so they sent us outside. Get some fresh air and sunshine. Vitamin D. Get deep breaths of air. Don’t restrict air flow with cloth. Get dirty. How naive we were. So much better to have instructions. It’s really reassuring to have someone of superior intelligence (I mean, they go by nicknames like “the Science” for goodness sake) let us know that inhaling can kill you, exhaling can kill someone else no matter how good you feel, faces are two-dimensional or are comprised only of two eyes, eyebrows, and a piece of cloth or paper, neurological and social development just happen and require no human interaction to proceed normally, school is only important as an optional part-time occupation functioning to display occasional optional assignments to do on your own, time in front of a screen has no physical consequences ... "
