That’s how I remember malls mostly, as places for aimless wandering and talking, with enough distractions to make it seem like you were “doing something.” But teens are going to malls less these days—about 30 percent less often compared to 10 years ago, Quartz reports. It seems they’re going to restaurants instead, which, those are cool places to hang out too, I guess.

While it would be reasonable to argue that hanging out at the mall is a good way for kids to jump aboard the train of consumerism nice and early, there was something comforting about the panoply of identities for sale. (I know it’s not great that stores and the things they sell are often stand-ins for identity, but they are and in the awkwardness of adolescence, you have to work with what you’re given sometimes.) Maybe today you’d enter the shadowy, cologne-soaked labyrinth of Hollister, maybe tomorrow you’d peruse rows of Manic Panic in the (also fragrance-drenched) Hot Topic. Or maybe you’d just sit at the food court and eat soft pretzels with your friends, grateful for a time and a space away from the pressures of growing up.