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And while the prevalence of slumping on the sofa is partly driven by being broke, rocketing inflation doesn’t entirely explain why a poll in December by the campaign group More in Common found British under-24s were more likely than the middle-aged to support bringing back Covid restrictions such as nightclubs closing or the “rule of six” cap on socialising.

Long before lockdowns curbed their liberty, risk-taking behaviour expressed in teenage pregnancy and youth offending was steadily declining in both the US and the UK, as, more surprisingly, was the number of young people holding either a part-time job or a driving licence – both once regarded as keys to freedom.

In her 2017 bestseller iGen, the American psychologist Jean Twenge blamed smartphone immersion and over-protective parenting for what she dubbed an anxious generation’s tardiness in reaching adult milestones such as dating, driving, getting a Saturday job and generally embracing the outside world.

As boisterous teens emerged from lockdown, a spate of shopping malls and fast food restaurants, from California in the US to West Lothian in Scotland, all imposed similar temporary curfews, bans or rules requiring a “parental escort”.

Though antisocial teenage behaviour can’t be dismissed lightly, what’s striking is that fast food joints, shopping malls, cinemas and beaches were all once spaces for younger teens newly embarking on independent social lives to hang out away from adults.

Yet arguably they have never been more needed: one in four younger teens has had to give up a sport or hobby they enjoyed because their families couldn’t afford it, according to research by youth charity OnSide last year for a report bleakly titled Generation Isolation, which found three-quarters of the children questioned said they now spent most of their free time on screen.

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