Colman Noctor: The lost art of hanging around and connecting with other teens 

For today's teenagers, where every activity is organised and structured, the loss of ‘hanging around’ for no particular reason has created a gap that no amount of texting or planning can fill

Hanging around as teenagers can create the conditions for low-pressure interactions and allow mixed-gender friendships to develop gradually, without expectation. Picture: iStock

It can be difficult to explain to young people today what my social life was like as a teenager in the 1990s. Not because it was complicated, but because it was so unstructured. There were no group chats to coordinate plans, yet somehow, we still met, probably more often than today’s teenagers do.

I would even say we didn’t really ‘meet up’; we ‘gathered’. Often with no particular purpose, which modern teenagers, such as my son, find confusing.

In the ’90s, you might walk into the local village with only a vague sense that ‘someone’ would be around, and usually they were. The same faces appeared in the same places — outside a shop, at a bus stop, on a patch of grass, or sitting on a wall. No one organised it, and no one needed to explain why they were there. They were simply hanging around, which became a cornerstone of our adolescent development.

From a modern teenager’s perspective, that kind of aimless socialising seems pointless. But for us, it created the conditions for repeated, low-pressure interactions, allowing mixed-gender friendships to develop gradually, without expectation.

In the field of psychotherapy, we call that phenomenon ‘propinquity’, which is the circumstances that lead us to form friendships with the people we see regularly, rather than with those we have the most in common with. 

We don’t tend to form friendships with those we initially like most, but with the people who are simply ‘there’. Today, that landscape has changed so dramatically that propinquity has largely disappeared, making it hard to appreciate what has been lost.

Social commentator Scott Galloway points out that “teenagers are now spending less time outdoors than prison inmates”. 

While the comparison is intentionally provocative, it reflects a broader truth. Prison systems typically aim for two hours of outdoor time each day, whereas research suggests many young people now spend an average of 49 minutes outdoors, particularly on weekdays.

Outdoor time, once a natural part of adolescence, now needs to be actively arranged. Most teenagers’ social interactions are far more structured and involve planning, messaging, confirming, and often justifying plans to meet up. 

There needs to be a reason, such as going somewhere or doing something. Gathering simply to pass the time together has largely disappeared.

In its place, we’ve created a culture where informal contact is rare and subtly discouraged. Take showing up unannounced. For previous generations, including my own, this was normal. Adult visitors arrived without warning, and as a child, I knocked on doors to see if friends were in. It wasn’t intrusive; it was everyday life.

While our busy modern lives may help explain why this happens less often, it doesn’t explain why it feels almost inappropriate. Turning up without warning risks being perceived as rude or socially inept. The expectation is that contact should be pre-arranged and confirmed, effectively formalising informal communication for both adults and teenagers.

The same shift appears in spontaneous conversation. Speaking to someone you don’t know, whether in a waiting room or at a bus stop, was once unremarkable. Today, it can seem unusual or even unsettling. Teenagers are growing up in a culture where approaching someone new carries a social risk of being labelled ‘weird’ that didn’t exist before.

Then there’s social media, which adds another dimension to socialisation. Sending daily images of a wall or your foot on Snapchat is considered acceptable, whereas not being on platforms like Instagram raises questions about someone’s social life. If you can’t be found or followed online, you risk becoming socially invisible.

Teenagers are more connected than ever in a technical sense, yet many feel increasingly disconnected in a relational sense. When messaging becomes the primary mode of communication, the shared physical space that allows relationships to deepen diminishes, leaving less room for the small, inconsequential exchanges that build familiarity over time.

In the 1990s, much of my social development happened in those in-between moments: the walk home from school, time spent waiting around, or, in my case, the number 65 bus from Blessington to Templeogue. 

These moments weren’t planned, and they didn’t need to be. They existed because young people repeatedly occupied the same spaces, and that repetition mattered. Even if a conversation was awkward, there would be another chance. Relationships developed slowly, without pressure. You didn’t have to make a strong impression — you just had to keep showing up.

Today, when teenagers meet, it’s often in settings with higher expectations, such as planned meet-ups or organised activities. While enjoyable, these settings carry an implicit pressure for things to go well.

Young people tell me there is less tolerance for awkwardness or boredom, and less space for gradual connection. They often feel that if an interaction doesn’t click the first time, there may be no second chance, which has implications for their social development.

Friendship is not just about shared interests or compatible personalities. It’s also about exposure, familiarity, and time spent together. Without regular, low-stakes contact, it becomes harder to build relationships that feel secure.

As a result, many teenagers try to form friendships through deliberate, high-effort actions: sending messages, making plans, and initiating conversations. But without repeated informal contact, these efforts can lead nowhere.

When messages go unanswered, or plans don’t materialise, it’s easy to interpret this as rejection. Without the buffer of casual interaction, those experiences carry more weight than they should, and that’s where we begin to see the emotional impact.

I meet many young people who struggle with high levels of self-doubt, heightened sensitivity to rejection, and a tendency to withdraw when efforts don’t pay off quickly. For some, the conclusion becomes not “this is difficult”, but “there’s something wrong with me”. 

At the same time, others are missing out on important social learning through informal interaction, such as reading body language, managing awkward moments, and developing a sense of humour.

These skills emerge naturally when people spend time together without a fixed agenda. When social contact is structured, those opportunities are limited.

There’s also something to be said for boredom. In the 1990s, it was often the backdrop to teenage life. There was nothing in particular to do, and that was the point. Out of boredom came creativity, conversation, and connection. Teenagers learned to fill time together and exist in each other’s company without constant stimulation.

Today, boredom is something to be avoided. With smartphones providing endless distractions, the need to simply ‘be’ with others has diminished. But in removing boredom, we may also be removing the ability to ‘be’ with someone, which is a key ingredient in social bonding.

It would be unrealistic to suggest we can return to the social norms of the 1990s. The world has changed. But we, the adults, need to ask what is being lost and what might need to be reintroduced. We need to examine our assumptions. 

When a teenager wants to “just hang out”, do we regard it as a valid use of time? When someone calls unexpectedly, do we see it as an opportunity for connection or an inconvenience? Cultural shifts don’t happen in isolation; they are reinforced by the norms we accept and the behaviours we model.

For today’s teenagers, social life can feel like something that must be managed, curated online, organised offline, and constantly evaluated. What’s missing is the ease, repetition, and informality that once made connection more accessible.

While it may seem insignificant, the loss of ‘hanging around’ has created a gap that no amount of texting or planning can fill. We need to remind teenagers that the most important interactions are sometimes the ones that aren’t planned at all.

• Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist