The 1990's

On July 16, 1990, Time magazine put a group of young adults on its cover beneath the word “twentysomething” and asked whether they were laid back, late blooming, or simply lost. The story said they struggled to make decisions, would rather hike the Himalayas than climb the corporate ladder, and had no anthems, no heroes, and an attention span as short as one click of the remote. Those young adults were the same kids who had been labeled “at risk” in the 1980s.

Now they were entering adulthood under a new set of warnings. This is the fifth episode in the Disturbing History series on the…