To much risk aversion in life for people today. As a kid we had an empty slightly hilly field we would play in. We would dig holes and build forts and pretend. We were not visible to many people and we were not bothered by people. I have not dug a hole just for the sake of digging a hole and playing make believe in a very long time. We used to ride our bikes down to the lake with out parental supervision, no one watching our backs. We did not have knee pads, elbow pads or helmets, we did not don any special clothing or anything other than we were not allowed to ride with flip flops on for some strange reason, (bare foot was okay).
There were risk in the above activities, but it was okay. Odds of being kidnapped were pretty low, I think the odds are still as low if not lower now, but the media hypes all the bad, instills fear, and governments make it against the law, so kids are not allowed to learn to grow and be on their own. Today the nanny state is a very real thing, and it is spreading around the world faster than a wildfire.
I don't know how other feel about it, but I do not and never have liked people constantly looking over my shoulder for my own good. There is no satisfaction in eating that candy bar when you have society telling you all about the evils of it and that that is why you are fat. Then comes the counter arguments of but something in chocolate helps prevent heart disease. So the risk - "fat" - or - "heart attack preventive"? Solution, don't eat it the risk out weigh the benefits.
Everything done today seems to be all about the risk factor. Look at the death rate percentage of covid 19:
3.4% Mortality Rate estimate by the World Health Organization (WHO) as of March 3
source:https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#who-03-03-20
We have become a society of chicken littles screaming and screeching about how the sky is falling. I really feel sorry for those in their late teens and early 20's.
The field you mention brings back memories of one of us as kids having pinecone fights (big, hard pinecones) in the backyard. We would build forts and collect buckets of them and war for hours. One brother and I invented a night version of the game - which was two campfires either side of a field and burning pinecones :D
I think the looking over the shoulder isn't a good way to manage this - it needs to be people opting into a better way of life. At the end of the day, survival of the fittest will likely run its rule. obesity is up, depression is up, crime is up, loneliness... the list goes on for the things killing us - but people are worried about covid.