What is a teenage dream? Something is sold to us by films and television programs, pop stars and groups, and even our own parents. We are told to wait for reliable social life and great freedom in our teenage years. But the images of extracurricular fires and walks around the busy shopping centers could not be further from the reality of teenage life today.
This is definitely how I feel 18-year-old with Texas-like and many of my peers. “Where are we going to go?” -I ask Befania, a 17-year-old girl from Washington, describing a “permanent struggle” to find a place for get-together.
According to Talk. 51 percent The 12th grade in the 1980s and 90s dangling with friends daily. A 2023 ballot showed that only 14 percent of Americans are doing the same thing now. For most, the answer is that “as I told” Maddalen, a 17-year-old South Carolina resident, Maddalen. “We are so tired and we have no energy to do anything.”
Awesome time being a teenager in America. We the lonely generation So far. Elderly generations blame our lack of social life for “Telephone dependence“Either the consequences pandemic. Although it is true that these factors change what it means to be a young man today, our behavior is also a response to other aspects of our social and political climate. Since we think what happened to the “teenage dream”, one of the largest guilty for our lost connection is Death of public spaces; Searching for safe and affordable public areas is a rarity, and it is almost impossible to visit them regularly if they are closely monitored and often limited to local laws and urban police.
For example, in New Jersey, some teens are now subjected to local 11 evening curfew hour. After a number of popup parties on the jersey-shore sidewalk last year this curfew has Three hours earlier On the beaches in the summer. The New Jersey Police Department states that these restrictions are valid to prevent teenagers “Enter the trouble“But for some it seems that it prevents them from getting anywhere.” In comparison with my parents, I feel that they have more freedom when it comes to how late they may be, “the 17-year-old woman said with New Jersey.
“Coeuteous hours in public spaces, especially in urban cities, make a get -together with a group of my friends more difficult,” Betania said. And the removal and police public spaces disproportionately affect the People of color. “A couple of my friends and I decided to go to the mall after school and we were in shape. We were in line to get food, and we went to security to leave the mall right away because it was on school hours, though We released early, ”she said. “I was tired of marked only because I am black and fun with my friends on the street.”
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Even in few inclusive and affordable areas there is another fear in public spaces. This year was about 37 years old mass pictures across the country. In 2019, more than 20 people were killed in my hometown shopping center. I remember shopping with my friends just a week before. Five years later, I still worry that it will happen again. “We are some paranoids and look at the neighborhood,” said Essenia. “In the depths of the mind there is a fear that it (violence with weapons) can happen,” Matthew adds.
Researchers are working on how to make our communities more convenient for teens but begins to make public space available for all members of the public. Christina Park, a researcher at the Biosesign laboratory, worked on “Attracting teenagers in public space“The project on the development of public spaces for teenagers presented in the Association of Landscape Architects of Washington in 2020. The park tells about what you need to do to create space and environment for all, especially adolescents who often leave from these conversations.” We only that stopped, including the age group of teenagers in our public spaces, “she said.” We never intentionally developed to include them. We now have decades of urban design that has lowered space that welcome changes and support their interests and activities. “
The park also revealed the inconsistency between the confession that teenagers are fighting with increased suicide and social response to it, which has enhanced the problems of Gen Z. “I hear these public comments about actively interfere News of youth suicide levels. “
The park, who has a daughter -teen, also says that, in addition to creating these places, parents can play a major role. She says it can be very simple: anything: from saying “so to the possibility of a party”, in order to overcome the school work less, it can change the situation. This may also mean that teenagers will be loud in open spaces rather than condemn socialization. “We need to add a little more empathy for our past,” she said. “This is a national health crisis.”
