I'd consider south america as part of the west. I'm from Brazil and I'd never just pop in a friend's house without being invited over. I suppose if you live in a small town that could happen. But I do think americans do that in small towns too.
Before the smart phone I think it was less odd to pop in if you were in the area, but with phones, I feel like anywhere I lived people would at the very least send a message.
Maybe I misremember but the UK seemed more like this in 80s / 90s. The part about just turning up. Not so much th
extended family / weddings type stuff.
I think the mobile phone (original, not just smart phone) killed it to some extent as you would arrange things on the phone and not pop in.
If you're going back that far, "popping in" was not uncommon in the US either. Yes mobile tech has contributed to reduction in unannounced visits.
With the ability and expectation that you can contact anyone at any time and make or change plans, doing anything unannounced has become unexpected. It used to be much more normal.
Agreed. I grew up in a semi-rural area in the US in the 90s and no one in our community thought twice about just showing up.
This sometimes still happened within the past decade in rural Virginia (my family owned a farm there). Neighbor farmers would stop by once a week or so and just chat, usually still sitting in their truck. Seemed like they were on their way somewhere and saw us outside so they'd pull over to talk.
