u/EntertainerFuzzy3095

I’m 20 now, but as a kid (only child) I was very limited in who I could hang out with in-person—although I pretty much had free-range access to the internet. My parents freaked out when they found out that my friend and I walked around our safe suburban neighborhood in the daytime for 30 minutes when I was 8, with walkie-talkies to communicate with my friend’s parents. They subsequently made me stop hanging out with her, as they thought that her parents were incompetent for letting us play outside by ourselves. Meanwhile, I had completely free access to the internet in my own home, meaning that I could voice chat with grown men or receive pictures from them through video games starting at age 5. Or I could also just go on random sites on the family computer (and nobody knew to look through search history at the time). This was before online safety was a big thing, but I was just wondering if anyone else had the same experience lol.