“There’s nothing to do!” a teenager of 2026 cries out, and their parents respond with “When I was a kid, we just went to the mall.” The teenager rolls their eyes and says “Parents just don’t understand.”
But it’s true, adults just don’t understand that young people are being pushed out of modern society; malls are dying, teen-designated areas are policed, coffee shops have time limits or laptop bans, comic stores disappearing, and diners are expensive. There is no “the spot” anymore; there is no third space for teenagers to exist as they are.
I grew up with my father showing me Saved by the Bell; the most idyllic 80s show to exist. Portraying a trope-filled high school friend group (fully equipped with a jock, a nerd, a quiet girl, a popular girl, and Zack Morris) who spent way too much time at “The Max.” The Max was a local diner that their lives centered around, they went on dates there, fought there, ran school fundraisers there, and even in a very emotional episode, saved The Max from closing.
It’s obvious that Saved by the Bell is fictional along with its “Max,” but you can’t help but wonder why The Max is so important to the plot. Is it simply a writer’s choice with the intention of minimizing the amount of expensive sets? I would argue no, the reason that The Max is so integral to the show’s development is because it feels realistic and ideal. In reality, young people want a space to themselves away from adults and pressure. To that extent, the only adult I can recall ever seeing in The Max was Max, the owner, himself, creating a perfect lawless space to conduct their episodic shenanigans. The writers of Saved by the Bell made The Max such an important part of the show simply to attract 80s and 90s teenagers that could relate or wanted a space like “The Max” of their own.
It may sound predictable to say that “The Max” doesn’t exist anymore (as it never did in the first place), but it really doesn’t exist anymore. 80s, 90s, and even 2000s television pitched the idea of a third space to impressionable teenagers, but once we hit the 2010s, this idea slowly disappeared from T.V. Even early 2010 nickelodeon shows, like Victorious, moved the idea of a third space onto the school campus, disqualifying it as a third space. A third space is a place outside of home and school or work where people gather, relax, and build community. The Max qualifies as a third space, The Asphalt Cafe (Victorious’ outdoor school cafe) doesn’t.
But why, you ask,
get rid of third spaces in television? Answer: Money. Our average teenager lacks the financial capabilities to go for an afterschool meal everyday, meaning that portraying that on television would be worthless, as it wouldn’t appeal to the youth. The financial implication of having a third space is important; in 1989, when Zack Morris sat with A.C. Slater in the same booth at The Max every day, they had to pay for the burgers and fries they’d eat. Cut to modern day, where CBS News reports that the average cost for a low quality fast food hamburger meal (but it is worth noting that the Max was not a fast food chain, but a locally owned restaurant) is $11.56. This number is alarming compared to the $4.59 Big Mac Value Meal of Zack’s day. Thus, over the course of the five-day school week, modern day Zack would be spending nearly sixty dollars a week on hamburgers and fries. Sixty dollars a week on food is simply not attainable for the modern day teenager, driving them out of locally owned diners or even out of McDonald’s.
And you, a skeptical adult, say that whenever you go into your local McDonald’s it is littered with children, and you wonder why because there is a perfectly good library across the street for them to cause a ruckus in. I say, libraries are more anti-teenagers than ever.
Teenagers have the unfortunate reputation of being trouble makers, Ferris Bueller was a 17-year-old senior not a 80-year-old senior after all. But are teenagers causing trouble or simply responding to systems that want them to cause trouble?
I personally love the library. I go there quite often to try to make a dent in my mounting homework, but everytime I go to the one in my downtown area, I notice something odd. The Library in Stamford is different from most, it has several branches, the largest one being the one downtown. Downtown has four floors, namely the bottom floor where the passport office and the teen section lies. The teen section was likely created as a way to store more mature media away from the Dr. Seuss picture books, however I see it as a way to tuck teenagers away from the rest of the library.
They make up for the exclusion with comfy chairs, phone chargers, more relaxed rules, but you cannot shake that eerie feeling of being watched. As a teenager comes upstairs to use the bathroom, they draw more attention than an adult doing the same thing, as adults really can’t help but wonder what they’re doing upstairs. As nice as it is to have a manufactured third space, the message falls flat. They want to say, “Teens come here,” but they really say, “You’re welcome here! But only here.”
But what about malls, you ask. In recent years, shopping malls across the United States, including the American Dream Mall and Connecticut Post Mall, have implemented policies outlawing shoppers under 18 from being at the malls when not accompanied by a legal adult (some malls even require the adult to be over 21). I will admit, these rules were put in place in response to fights or disruptive behavior. But what happens is, every teenager is a suspect. The majority now has to pay for the mistakes of the minority. Teenagers who just want to eat froyo are followed around like inmates in a prison they somehow chose to go to. Does that sound fair?
In a way, the expectation that a teenager is doing something wrong, often causes them to act out. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, adults stare at teens and watch their every move to make sure they’re doing nothing wrong, so the teen eventually accepts their doomed fate and breaks the rules, it’s what they want anyways.
But do teens really need a third space? After all, labor laws preventing children from working in mines weren’t in effect until 1938, and I’d argue being bored at home is far better than working in a mine.
The bigger meaning is simple: you need a fresh and new space to gain fresh and new perspectives or experiences. You can’t feel the joy of climbing Mount Everest from your couch. And that is what a third space does.
As described by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, “Third places have been parent to other forms of community affiliation and association that eventually coexist with them.—There must be places in which people can find and sort one another out across the barriers of social difference.”
The Max was where Screech, a nerd, found a lifelong friendship in Zack, a popular boy who couldn’t be more different from him. Central Perk is where the Friends met Rachel for the first time, the person who’d have an immeasurable impact on their lives. These were more than just well-put together sets, they are backdrops for love, friendship, and community.
Today, these places are becoming hard to find. When we say there’s nothing to do, it means there is no place to exist together as kids. Without malls, diners, or gathering spots where young people can spend time without pressure or suspicion, the everyday interactions that are foundational to friendships and community disappears, and connections go along with it.