Growing up in a culture-deprived small town, magazines were my theoretical link to the outside world. From Teen People, I learned about all the up-and-coming celebrities I needed to know; Teen Vogue opened my eyes to designer labels and fashion shows; Seventeen was the go-to for real girl stories; YM had body and beauty advice about things I didn't even know to ask about (i.e. sex, body image, makeup); and InStyle's earnest spinoff, Your Look, taught me that some magazines just weren't made to have "little sister" editions (issue count: one). At any given time, there were more than enough options for the all-American everygirl like me. A striking contrast with today's selection, which has dwindled down to less than a handful of stalwart publications.

To find out more about the future of teen mags and where print went wrong, I spoke to Faran Krentcil, the digital director of Nylon Magazine, and former writer for New York Magazine, Teen Vogue, Fashion Week Daily, and Fashionista.com.

Nylon Magazine isn't a teen mag, per se, but Faran really is the future of the digital lifestyle publication. She blogs for the magazine's website with the enthusiasm of a big sister revealing the coolest bit of gossip since Blair Waldorf kissed Nate Archibald. And, appropriately enough, just days after I talked to Faran, Nylon converted many of its subscribers over to digital edition.

Ypulse: Are teen magazines struggling because the demographic is so much more mature, and reaching for grown-up magazines instead?

Faran Krentcil: When I was 12, I was reading Vogue. A big misconception is that teens are now more mature. If you read any young adult book, you know that's not true. In a sense, teen girls never wanted to read teen material. I think that it's that teens have more information now than they ever did.

YP: So the teen mag demise is an effect of oversaturation?

FK: It's not that we can go on Facebook to find out what's cool. It's that advertisers have a much stronger idea about numbers…everything is calculated so precisely. What happened is there became so many [publications], and the market became smaller for more magazines. I think that people are very quick to say, "oh the internet has ruined everything." What happened with teen magazines is a little bit what happened to banking — people put stock in everything.

It's not always only about numbers; if it was, only US Weekly and People and porn would exist.

YP: Will print press live on, or is the future of the teen mag in digital form?

FK: I think it is reactionary to a fault to say that in ten years no one will have a magazine. It's a visual escapist fantasy and you can't carry it with you on a screen. When you get on the subway, or on the plane, or sit in class, you don't scroll through your laptop. You have your one ounce magazine.

Teens know how to use technology, but their incomes vary greatly. When I was in high school, I couldn't go to Betsey Johnson. I went to thrift stores and TJ Maxx, because that's where my mom let me shop. If a mom or a dad have a choice of giving their kid $3.50 for a magazine or $200 for a kindle, they are obviously going to choose the magazine.

YP: How can magazines have a successful presence online?

FK: Ideally there should be a symbiotic relationship between print and digital. Right now, the magazine is Marc Jacobs and the Internet is Marc by Marc Jacobs. You have to think of the magazine as Marc Jacobs and the internet as Chloe — equally cool but slightly different.

About Casey

Casey is a college student by day, freelance writer by night. Despite growing up in a Midwestern town so small you literally can't find Vogue for sale, she got her start covering teen fashion for About.com at age 13, then went on to create her own style website at 17.She is currently pursuing a journalism degree at the University of Missouri and spends every spare minute reading and writing about youth trends. When her head seems to be buried in college textbooks, you can probably find an issue of Teen Vogue slipped into the binding.

Categorized under: Fashion, Magazines

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