Teens used to chase the freedom of driving. Gen Z isn’t interested.

The day I turned 16, I hounded my mom to take me to the DMV to get my driver’s license. It was a day I had looked forward to for years: the promise of a 16th birthday and the independence that would come with getting my driver’s license.

But that was in 2009. Now things are different. For many young people, that rite of passage is being delayed or avoided entirely. According to data from the Department of Transportation, only 25% of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license in 2022, compared to 50% in 1983. But why are Gen Z-ers eschewing what was once seen as the pinnacle of teenage life?

Oliver, a 20-year-old from Illinois, tells me that he only recently got his driver’s license, after getting a job that required him to have it. “I avoided doing it,” he says. “I felt like it would be unsafe or I wouldn’t be good at it.”

This is something that young people told me over and over again: They were scared of driving — and studies have shown that Gen Z has more anxiety than other generations. But it’s not only the stress that stopped him from getting his driver’s license, Oliver adds. There was also the fact that so much of his generation’s socializing happens online. “We do so much online through social media,” he says. “We all grew up with this sense of life, that you spend two hours scrolling by yourself.”

Is it only natural that a generation raised on the internet and social media turns to their phones instead of going outside and spending time with each other? “I don’t really go many places,” says Megan, a 29-year-old in Missouri who says anxiety over driving has kept her from getting her driver’s license. “I’m very scared to get it,” she says. “I don’t know why.”

Another common theme: the pandemic. Miles, a 17-year-old from Minnesota, says it shaped his generation. “We were virtual with our friends. We didn’t feel the need to go outside to hang out or go places,” he says. “There’s less of a desire to go out.” Miles, who is Black, also worried about his safety should he be pulled over by police. Then there’s the financial aspect: It costs around $600, he estimates, to pay for driver’s ed and the driver’s test to get your license. Though he was eligible to get his license at 16, Miles waited until after he turned 17. “[It] feels like being free,” he admits.

That sense of freedom is what I worry young people are missing. I posted videos on Instagram and TikTok while I was working on this story and people flooded the comments, telling me why they hadn’t gotten their licenses. Cost was an issue that arose repeatedly, and with good reason — cars, gas and insurance have only gotten more expensive since I was a teenager. And even in places without public transportation systems, there are Ubers and Lyfts to fill the gap for a teenager or young adult who isn’t ready to drive or can’t afford the costs associated with it. Hannah, a 21-year-old from New York, tells me she might consider getting her driver’s license once she’s out of college, but that it’s not a priority right now. “Luckily, my parents are amazing,” she says. “They drove me around forever.”

But for some parents, it can be frustrating for their teenage and young adult children to refuse to get their licenses and become so-called passenger princesses. Nora, a mom in California, has a 20-year-old daughter who doesn’t want to get her driver’s license. For Nora, that requires more intensive parenting than she thought she would be doing at this stage. “I feel like I’m in that stage of life where I absolutely should be a full empty nester but instead I have the equivalent of a 14- or 15-year-old, where they have expectations and demands and they want autonomy … but they literally require us to get them there.” Nora believes it may have been the pandemic that changed her daughter’s generation so much — those months of lockdown where life shrunk to what was on our phones and in our houses.

Radhika is the mom of a 21-year-old who has no interest in getting her license. “It’s been really frustrating,” she says. “There’s some block. I don’t know what the deal is.” Part of it, Radhika thinks, is because her daughter doesn’t really go anywhere. What’s the point of getting a driver’s license when you don’t have anywhere you want to go?

This is something else I heard over and over from people: There’s nowhere for teenagers to go anymore. But where did I go as a teenager, with my license? My friends and I hung out at each other’s houses or at parks or even in parking lots. There’s never really been anywhere for teenagers to go. That’s not the point of a license. The point of a license is to be able to go somewhere outside of your house. “It’s very frustrating watching her,” Radhika says. “It’s very sad. I just want my life.”

Rebecca, who is the mom of a 16-year-old in Los Angeles, cites social media and phones as major factors in the decline of young people getting their licenses. When there is nonstop entertainment and stimulation inside of your phone, what’s the point of getting your license?

“Pre-phones, if we wanted to escape, we had to physically escape. We got into cars and drove,” she says. “Anything that teenagers would do to escape, whether it’s trying to get high or have sex or go shopping, that can all be done with a phone. I do think that COVID basically created the opportunity for young people to figure out how to exist without leaving the house.”

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