Each day brings news of climate disasters, rising tides, heat waves, floods. But no one is talking about another sign of impending doom: the disappearance of teenagers. Before you jump on a Reddit thread to disprove this (“I just saw one in Starbucks!”), try taking a walk around your city or town—if you still leave your house instead of being chronically online—and see how many teenagers you encounter outside. You probably won’t see many.
Things were once very different—especially in New York, where I live. I may notice the de-teenification of public spaces more than most because, about 30 years ago, I accidentally became what was awkwardly called a “youth-culture reporter.” “We want to do a story on rich kids,” a magazine editor told me airily. “Go find out what they’re doing.” Being new to the job, and not having many connections to rich people (the private schools I called and requested access to also responded with a resounding no), I just started wandering around, hoping to run into some teens. And they were literally everywhere, as they might have said.
