Lew-Levy and Amir present an important perspective that children are cultural creators and maintainers, playing a crucial role in cultural transmission, innovation, and adaptation. However, we believe that their account has some gaps regarding how peer cultures vary across different contexts that we would like to address and expand upon.

This target article described several cases to support how children create and sustain unique cultures through peer interactions. However, those cases are almost exclusively drawn from small-scale, underdeveloped tribes or regions. In these settings, children are receiving relatively less supervision and control, allowing them greater autonomy to explore and organize their own activities and, in turn, develop peer cultures. This article does not fully explain the formation and maintenance of peer cultures in East Asian cultural societies, where parents have a high level of control, supervision, and involvement in children’s lives (Pomerantz & Wang, Reference Pomerantz and Wang2009).

The target article briefly mentions that children in post-industrial Western countries are gradually losing opportunities to access spaces outside adult supervision, thereby reducing their ability to independently choose social partners (Singer et al., Reference Singer, Singer, D’Agnostino and DeLong2009). A similar yet distinct situation exists in East Asian societies, where strict family, school, and social order are emphasized (Rozman, Reference Rozman2014). This raises an important question: does the dual control system of family and school in East Asian cultures further impact children’s ability to independently create culture and develop peer cultures?

In high-control societies, such as China, Japan, and South Korea, children’s daily lives are highly structured, with little unsupervised time for organic peer culture development (Pomerantz & Wang, Reference Pomerantz and Wang2009). East Asian cultures are largely influenced by Confucian traditions, which emphasize obedience and conformity within families and schools (Sung, Reference Sung2010). This cultural emphasis on family relationships, intergenerational transmission, and social status results in a socialization process where children’s behavior, friendships, and cultural exposure are closely monitored by adults (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Rubin, Li and Li1999; Xiong et al., Reference Xiong, Qin, Wang and Pomerantz2020), potentially limiting children’s ability to independently create culture and develop peer cultures (Rozman, Reference Rozman2014). For example, children’s extracurricular activities and social interactions are often strictly guided by parents (Hu & Mu, Reference Hu and Mu2020), and heavy academic workloads leave children with limited time for free exploration, leading to the predominance of “adult-directed children’s culture” rather than spontaneous peer cultures (Dunne et al., Reference Dunne, Sun, Do Nguyen, Truc, Loan and Dixon2010). This raises the following question: can peer cultures exist in societies where autonomy is suppressed, and if so, how do they manifest?

In such an environment, even if children develop certain forms of culture and peer cultures, these cultures tend to be more covert. Examples include the use of “Lou Go (ルー語, code switching)” in Japanese schools, and “shadow social circles” amongst South Korean students. These cultural phenomena are often unrecognized or unnoticed by adults (Kim, Reference Kim2016; Winch, Reference Winch2015). As a result, East Asian children are likely to shift their cultural interactions online to avoid excessive adult interference (Farrall, Reference Farrall2012). These examples suggest that even in highly controlled environments, children find ways to create and transmit peer-specific knowledge, albeit in ways that differ from the largely autonomous peer cultures described in the target article.

Another significant adaptation of peer culture in East Asian high-control societies is its strategic shift to digital spaces. In contexts where children’s offline autonomy is limited by intense parental and school control, online environments have become not just platforms for socialization, but they function as culturally significant refuges where peer culture can survive, adapt, and thrive (Farrall, Reference Farrall2012; Zhu et al., Reference Zhu, Li, Zhao and Hu2024). Unlike children in small-scale societies who develop independent play cultures in physical settings, East Asian children increasingly rely on digital platforms to circumvent adult supervision and sustain peer solidarity (Manago & McKenzie, Reference Manago, McKenzie, Nesi, Telzer and Prinstein2022; Tang et al., Reference Tang, Omar, Bolong and Mohd Zawawi2021; Yamada et al., Reference Yamada, Sekine, Tatsuse and Asaka2021). For example, China’s Generation Z articulates emotional fatigue through “Sang Culture” on social media, fostering both individual release and collective belonging (Yang et al., Reference Yang, Rahim, Hoong and Hassim2024). Digital spaces, including gaming communities, social media, and messaging apps (e.g., QQ, WeChat, LINE), serve as virtual playgrounds, enabling the creation, circulation, and evolution of peer-driven cultural forms (Lee et al., Reference Lee, Park, Na and Kim2016; Steinberg, Reference Steinberg2020). Although both parents and schools are making efforts to prohibit students from using smartphones, children still tend to use them secretly to avoid supervision (e.g., Seo & Lee, Reference Seo and Lee2017). Within these tightly networked and often carefully guarded spaces, highly covert forms of peer culture can emerge, often invisible to adult oversight. This systematic relocation of peer culture from public, physical settings into digital domains illustrates how digital peer culture emerges as a cultural adaptation to a highly regulated social environment in East Asia. Ultimately, it demonstrates that peer culture is not absent but instead takes on more covert, negotiated, or digitally mediated forms due to the specific sociocultural constraints on children’s autonomy in East Asian societies.

While the target article posits that peer cultures naturally emerge from children’s spontaneity and creativity, evidence from East Asian societies complicates this assumption. In contexts such as China, Japan, and South Korea, the formation and function of peer cultures are heavily shaped by intersecting forces of family and school. These cultures emphasize obedience, hierarchy, and academic achievement, which often result in rigid educational structures and intensive adult supervision. Such conditions impose significant constraints on children’s autonomy and curtail the development of independent peer cultures. Instead, as discussed above, East Asian children are more likely to develop “adaptive cultures,” cultural forms negotiated within and shaped by high levels of adult involvement and social expectation. The target article would benefit from incorporating more cross-cultural research, particularly from high-control societies such as those in East Asia. Such an expansion would offer a more nuanced understanding of how children’s cultures are formed, transmitted, and maintained under varying levels of adult regulation. It would also shed light on the ways parental control, social norms, and educational systems constrain or shape children’s cultural development.