Joel Stein, TIME magazine’s in-house humorist, isn’t focusing his attention this week on Middle East conflagrations, the sagging economy, on partisan battles in Washington. Still, Stein has identified a trend that bodes ill for America’s future.

One-third fewer kids are getting driver’s licenses than in 1983. There are two conclusions you can draw from this. One is that this is a generation that is environmentally concerned and economically challenged. The other is correct. They are dead inside.

It’s one thing to live at home after college, but to have so little desire for freedom that you don’t even want the option of driving is a sign of generational depression. I know I sound like my parents telling me to stop playing video games and go outside, but, first of all, they were right. Second, teenagers’ raging hormones should be pushing them out of the house no matter how much fun the Internet is. It’s not healthy to choose porn over actual sex until you’ve been married for 10 years. It’s as if teenagers took the campaign against texting and driving seriously and decided not to drive.

Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan released a study last month in which they asked teenagers why they weren’t getting licenses. The top excuse for those under 19 was that they were too busy. These are people, remember, who had time to answer a survey from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. The second most common reason was “able to get transportation from others.” These “others” are parents. Maybe kids have lost the good sense to be embarrassed by being dropped off by their parents, but parents should be embarrassed to be seen with kids so dorky they don’t want to drive. The environment, by the way, came in ninth. My ninth reason for anything is the environment. I believe I once said, “I’d love to go to your kid’s birthday party, but, you know, the environment.” …

… All the kids I spoke with had stories that were disturbingly similar: their parents wanted them to get their licenses, but they weren’t interested. Ashley, a 17-year-old senior in Cupertino, Calif., has a core group of four friends, none of whom have licenses, despite being eligible for over a year. By that point in my life, I had already gotten into three accidents, one of which didn’t even involve another car. “Getting a driver’s license is akin to becoming a lackey. ‘Here’s your driver’s license, and with it … responsibility!’ No, thank you,” Ashley told me. “I would much rather nap in the car while my father shuttles me around.” Even Brian Wilson didn’t write a car song that depressing.