On Being Gen Z | 7-03-25

Gen Z, my generation, is starting to grow into adulthood. For the last 10 years, we’ve heard constant musings of “social media and video games are destroying them” or “they’re not going to be able to get jobs” or “they will have to deal with the climate”. Some of these remarks are catastrophizing, but some have partial truths. So I’d like to illustrate my feelings on my generation to give a little bit more perspective. This is just my view on realities that apply to the general population of Gen Z in my orbit. Obviously there are exceptions, and there’s no one-size-fits-all description for an entire global generation of human beings. If it helps, I can narrow my commentary to middle-class American Gen Z.

For one thing, my generation has been much more exposed to social media. We were the first to grow up in a completely social media native age, while Milennials had some experience in a world with and without social media. In my experience, this has created both benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, we have become increasingly fixated on what other people think of us. I have personally noticed myself thinking about life experiences and memories in terms of how they can be presented to others on Instagram in a favorable light, which is both unnecessary and unhealthy. Especially since one of my most important values is appreciating the present, focusing on how others interpret my life as opposed to actually living it is not a great feeling. However, there are some people that are better at compartmentalizing this and some that are worse. I personally believe that it’s a downside, because you cheapen the actual experiences by only appreciating them with regards to the value they hold in other people’s eyes. I want to enjoy a meal because I want to, or a song because I like it, not because it looks good or would be a good soundtrack for a post I make on my summer plans. Also, something that my mother pointed out to me rings particularly true: the more that you update other people about your life, the less you incentivize people to truly make effort to interact with you. You make it eminently easy for people to not want to get to know you because they can see a plastic version of you up on the internet.

However, there are definitely some powerful benefits to social media. In my opinion, it’s a truly beautiful thing that we will be the first generation with such a great medium of maintaining connections with people throughout our lives. For example, in the past, our grandparents or parents had to call people’s landlines or send letters in order to keep in touch. For all of those innocuous or fleeting acquaintances that came in and out of your life, there was almost no way to maintain contact after leaving their immediate orbit. I’ve always been someone that’s very nostalgic, maybe owing to the fact that I have so many things I want to do in my life and have to grapple with how short life actually is. The daunting fact that I would lose contact with a good percentage of people that I went to high school with would probably have caused me not a few tears, although I’m sure I would’ve recovered. The difference for my generation is that we have platforms like Instagram that allow low-stakes, decentralized connections for the foreseeable future. This is its most powerful feature, in my opinion, because it will allow us to maintain contact across time and space, across continents and socioeconomic backgrounds. Just by clicking that follow button, we subscribe to stay along for the ride, to be kept posted on life updates or events that each person feels necessary to share. It’s interesting to think about what old age will look like for our digitally native generation. We’ll be 90 (hopefully) year-olds on social media, posting about our grandkids and reaching out to the literally thousands of people that we will have met and wanted to keep in touch with in our lifetime, all available and connected to our account. It’s beautiful, and no other generation has had that.

Now, thanks to the mistakes of our forefathers and the collective societal refusal to acknowledge the urgency of climate change, we are also saddled with the burden of a warming world. We’ll have to deal with hotter summers and less snow in the winter and, for some of us, we’ll have to deal with genuine environmental trauma and degradation. I think that this is a daunting challenge for our world, but that the media also catastrophizes the negatives without also highlighting the thousands of scientists and researchers working towards a better, cleaner, world. I personally aim to try and develop clean technology to help reverse the effects of climate change, because I feel like it’s a profitable and impactful calling that I could use my skills for. Hope is not lost! That’s all I’m trying to say. But it’s definitely a unique challenge that our generation will have to deal with more pointedly than past generations.

Also, we are faced with an aging ruling class as the older generation refuse to give up the reins to power. Our elections have only begotten older and older representatives in government, creating an oligarchy-like pattern in our institutions. There’s definitely a multifaceted response going on. Many Gen Z are fighting for their voice to be heard, while many aren’t really taking a stand. Either way, we’ll eventually replace these leaders as they are biologically unfit to rule, and the preparations for that demographic shift are important. I think that our generation is predisposed to change and to optimism, because of all the crises that we’ve had to deal with. However, I think that it wouldn’t be wrong to say we are less interpersonal and able to interact with each other. Social media and digital trends have caused general social life to suffer on average. Nurturing empathy is an important characteristic that people tend to lack when they spend too much time in their own digital bubble, and it’s a deficiency that Gen Z has to be aware of.

Lastly, I’m going to probably make my own separate post about this, because I think it’s important enough in its own right. “Nonchalant” has to go. Our Generation has fallen prey to a widespread psychological and societal trend in the media of the “cringeness” of effort. People I know synonymize any form of trying or effort towards a goal as obsessive or desperate, instead equating cool with effortless. This is a catastrophic societal shift: We need to glamourize putting effort in, working towards great goals, and trying our hardest. When did it become a crime to try? We lose our substance and our identity when we choose to stay nonchalant, instead of fully embracing our imperfections and trying anyway. Now, in my generation, I see the effects of this in friends that don’t know how to put in effort to their relationships, or students that don’t want to look like they’re studying leading to bad grades. Societally, I am starting to see some shifts towards putting in more effort in my generation. I hope they continue, because those of us who do truly feel passionate about things and want to try are suffering!

These are just some thoughts on my generation, I know that this doesn’t apply to everyone and maybe my viewpoint is skewed or biased by my environment. Maybe some of you have seen similar things, though.