Honestly, in my childhood opinion, it was fine, just trying out food and drinks (whether from shopping or restaurants), testing electronics and arcade games, maybe even buying some toys or going to indoor play areas.
Though the novelty of it soon worn out gradually, taking a walk and peek at around these areas for anything interesting is good once in a while, even if you're not buying anything.
Edit: on sec thoughts, should I place this in the urbanism community? And just so you know, I'm not an American, so I wouldn't know what butcherism might occur in the implementation of malls.
Forgive me for my redditor brainworms, but I still enjoy the small comforts of it, and converting them into mixed-used spaces, fine, but housing, Idk about that.
Exton Mall in Exton, Pennsylvania added a number of apartment buildings on the premises, a couple hundred feet from a Whole Foods. A pretty decent chunk of that mall is turned into medical facilities now, it's a pretty weird property and like many virtually inaccessible outside of an automobile.
My hot take is that as a society with climate change the most humane transition would be to make malls into massive mixed use complexes and attach them to all the warehouses, hospitals and mass indoor spaces with freight/passenger rail to make an efficient and climate controlled society while removing human habitation from the vast majority of spaces outside of the One Big Mall