'Kidult' Culture Hides Isolation, Misery

Today’s twentysomething men are a bunch of “kidults” and “thresholders,” writes Tony Dokoupil in Newsweek, content to stretch the transition from adolescence to adulthood into a decade of dude-centric activities like drinking, skirt-chasing, and mastering fire (“I’ll grill that potato salad,” one buddy boasts). But underneath the beers and jeers lie one of the most isolated—and, for the first time, downwardly mobile—demographics.

Despite being fawned over by marketers and fed an endless stream of Entourage and Judd Apatow flicks, these protracted adolescents have the highest suicide rate for any group except men over 70. They’re less likely to read a newspaper, attend church, vote, or think people are trustworthy —and the rate at which they’re moving back in with mom and dad has almost doubled since 1970.