An older friend once described his freshers’ week in some detail: a botched proposal, two inadvertently-acquired tattoos and more alcohol than he cared to remember. Mine was rather different: I was confined by the pandemic to a 3×4 metre room with solitary meals in an exam hall canteen. Corridors determined household bubbles (there were two of us) and ‘going out’ meant yet another riveting walk.
We’re WFH-obsessed quiet quitters who retreat behind email at the first opportunity
For many young people, substantial chunks of education or early working life were marred by similar experiences. With all these setbacks, you’d think we might have raised a generation of hyper-resilient go-getters, eagerly and adequately braced for the inevitable challenges of the real world. But many people don’t think that’s the case.
Steven Bartlett describes Generation Z – those, like myself, born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s – as ‘the least resilient’ cohort yet. The Economist frets in a recent article that, for Gen Z, ‘the popular view is that smartphones have made them miserable and they will live grimmer lives than their elders’.
My contemporaries and I are often branded delicate and half-hearted. We’re seen as easily offended, work shy and devoid of basic social skills. We’re WFH-obsessed quiet quitters who retreat behind email at the first opportunity. Constant job-hopping, absenteeism from work and school, and surging rates of mental health complaints have now become the norm.
Some might attribute this to cushy parenting or woke indoctrination. Alternatively, criticising the youth of the day is nothing new, and every age group has different aspirations and challenges. Is what we see today yet another round of the generation game, a classic case of kids-these-days critique?
Perhaps the painful truth about Gen Z is that there really is something amiss. When I look at many of my peers, it’s plain to see that too many find it hard to adapt. Prioritising standardised testing over problem-solving and critical thinking in schools leaves many of us ill-prepared for the real world. Our national obsession with university burdens too many of us with significant debt (£60,000, in my case) for degrees with minimal career relevance. This rigid system discourages risk or ‘unconventional’ pathways.
We’re also just not comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Raised in echo chambers and a cancel culture that silences alternative thinking, minimal exposure to healthy debate then erodes our ability to challenge consensus or respectfully disagree.
Meanwhile, the modern fixation on examining mental health and constantly dissecting emotion, even the good bits, instills an inevitable sense of fragility. That’s not to say serious conditions aren’t genuine or that the old days of keeping quiet were any better, but hormones and teenage angst have always and will always exist. We need to get better at separating the significant from the everyday.
Smartphones and incessant connectivity have fuelled a generational desire for instant gratification and a lack of perseverance. Using TikTok too often destroys someone’s attention span. This may seem trivial, but it has real-life consequences; peers shun live television due to adverts, or insist on finding ‘the one’ through countless swiping. Even corporate job applications have now been gamified.
This mindset severely impacts work culture, meaning we are losing the ability to remain focused on challenging tasks or stick with unsatisfying roles. Seven in ten of us expect to move on in the next year. Ambition has also increasingly manifested through side hustles for a rising number of us. Brown-nosing the boss is out; Depop, Shopify and even OnlyFans are in. While entrepreneurial zest is admirable, immediate reward now trumps longterm ambition.
The cumulative effect is a generation conditioned to avoid discomfort, unaccustomed to perseverance, and ultimately ill-prepared to adapt to life’s inevitable challenges. Throw in a constant anti-establishment rhetoric describing society as flawed and oppressive, alongside numerous social media platforms and 24/7 influencers further distorting our perception of the world and ourselves, and you can begin to understand some of the factors that have shaped our lives to date.
When I look at many of my peers, it’s plain to see that too many find it hard to adapt
Fifty years ago, the generation gap was defined primarily by culture, music and fashion. Today, this divide has been exacerbated by technology and a social information paradox, forcing monumental shifts in the way we live, think and interact. Risk is minimised. Truth is subjective and independent thought constrained. Civil society is more divided and uncivilised than ever before. We live disconnected from others, constantly urged to introspect at the detriment of engaging meaningfully with the world around us. The consequences should surprise no one.
I sometimes hear people defend Gen Z as disruptive or innovative. Such claims are simply not true: the reality is far less romantic. Of course, my generation is not all the same, but on the whole we are gritless. We do lack determination. There is nothing to celebrate about loss of resilience or ambition.
For older generations, it’s easy to look back nostalgically on simpler times. But, for Gen Z, the world that surrounds us today is the only reality we have ever known. However, society is not doomed. It is still possible to create a culture where independence and risk-taking are encouraged, where broader ideas are discussed freely and openly, and where we feel more genuinely connected to each other.
Similarly, as a generation, we also have some incredible advantages: we’re digital natives, globally connected, equipped with a natural entrepreneurial spirit and already actively engaged in civic discussions. Some of the happiest and most resilient people I know are young: athletes who avoid excessive screen time and actually go outside; activists of all colours who spend their weekends campaigning here or debating there; risk-takers who shunned university for multiple (now) failed ventures. It ultimately falls upon us as individuals to harness these advantages, to stand out from the crowd, to embrace possible discomfort, to learn to persevere and to take risks, more so than ever before.
If we can cultivate resilience and determination fit for the modern age, then there is hope. Perhaps by then it’ll be our turn to lament the next generation.
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