Where Have All the Teenagers Gone?

Rosario Dawson, Julia Mendoza, and Chloë Sevigny in Kids, 1995.

New York’s streets and parks used to be teeming with them. Now they’re inside on their phones—and the city’s culture is all the worse for it

By Nancy Jo Sales

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 READ ON