The eldest member of Generation Z — the demographic born between 1996 and 2010 — is just 24, and yet the group’s dominance is already being felt.
Last year, they became the largest generation, constituting 32 percent of the global population — or 2.47 billion of the 7.7 billion people on Earth — surpassing the millennials and Baby Boomers, respectively.
But their strength isn’t just in their numbers.
“They see the world so differently than those who came before them,” says Meghan Grace, author of “Generation Z: A Century in the Making.” According to Pew Research on American Gen-Zers, nearly half are ethnic minorities (48 percent) and a third know someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns (35 percent).
Most are pursuing college (59 percent compared to 32 percent of Gen-Xers at their age). They’re progressive but less partisan — a third decline to call themselves Democrats or Republicans. And they’re better at saving money (32 percent do it regularly compared to 23 percent of Gen-Xers when they were the same age), thanks to the ripple effects of the 2008 recession (when the oldest of them was just 13). “They’ve seen how an economic downturn can impact people’s lives,” says Grace.
They’re digital pioneers, boldly looking toward the future, but also surprisingly old-fashioned. “Generation Z is both trendy and timeless, which is rare for youth generations in the last 50 years,” says Tim Elmore, co-author of “Generation Z Unfiltered: Facing Nine Hidden Challenges of the Most Anxious Population.”
While a recent survey by condom company SKYN found they’re having sex younger (starting at age 16 compared to 18 for millennials) and they’re more sexually adventurous (42 percent would have a threesome compared to 30 percent of millennials), 65 percent of them take safe sex seriously, an upswing from 54 percent of millennials, and they’re also bringing back traditional values like marriage (80 percent of them plan on getting married someday, finds youth marketing firm YPulse).
The suicide rate among people aged 10 to 24 has jumped 56 percent since 2007, according to the CDC, but this same cohort is more likely (27 percent) to report their mental-health struggles than millennials (15 percent) and Gen-Xers (13 percent), according to a report last year by the American Psychological Association.
And though Gen-Zers are less religious than any previous generation (about one third of them have no religious affiliation, and according to research by the Barna Group, 21 percent of Gen-Zers identify as atheist or agnostic, compared to 15 percent of millennials), they’re also more accommodating to religious minorities in the workplace than previous generations, according to a Becket Fund for Religious Liberty report.
Here, six Gen-Zers talk about their generation — and how they see themselves fitting into it.
‘I love old-timey books’
Sasha Raven Gross, 11
Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
Gross describes her generation in just three words: “Phone and screen absorbed,” she says. She doesn’t use the social-media platforms so popular with her peers — “I don’t have TikTok or Instagram,” she laughs. “TikTok is just weird” — but she does identify with Gen-Z’s frustration.
“One thing we all have in common is we don’t feel heard,” she says. “It’s like when you’re a little kid and you’re at a party and you’re trying to get people’s attention but nobody is listening to you and you’re like, ‘Pay attention! I’m trying to speak here!’ ”
Gross feels like she has a lot to say. Kids in her class have been talking about the situation in Iran “and saying things like, ‘It’s going to be World War Three.’ ” She describes herself as “actually kind of scared.” She gets particularly nervous when she hears about the immigration crisis. “It makes me scared for my mother,” she says, an immigrant from Taiwan. “I don’t know if she’d be allowed in if she was coming to this country today.”
She finds solace in books. Gross is a voracious reader, a fan of novels like “The Hate U Give” and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” and she has a special place in her heart for the Harry Potter series. She prefers physical books, or as she calls them, “old-timey books.” With e-readers like Kindle, it’s too easy to lose focus, she says, “and it’s more satisfying to turn paper pages.”
In general, she’s not all that interested in the digital world. The Internet is just something she has to use for homework. “The only time I go online is to look up something for school,” she says.
‘The Internet is a safe haven for me’
Keith Paris, 20
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Paris embodies his own vision of Generation Z. He started his own YouTube channel not to become famous — he only has 371 subscribers — but to have something in his life that he controls completely.
“I’m the one who calls the shots,” he says. “I edit it, decide what I want to talk about. It’s completely mine.”
Paris uses the channel to discuss things like being gay — he came out while a sophomore in high school — and his life as an amputee. He was born without a tibia in his left leg, and since having it amputated, he wears a prosthetic just below his knee.
“Growing up, I never met a person who looked like me,” he says. “I wish I had. It would’ve made such a difference. It’s a big reason why I do this channel now. Representation is important.”
Paris’ childhood was less than happy. He says he was bullied, has experimented with self-harming, and was raised by Caribbean parents who didn’t understand his sexuality. But the Internet helped him realize he wasn’t alone.
“It was a safe haven for me,” Paris says. “I could connect with people who felt like me, who were going through similar problems. It made me realize, ‘Oh, I’m not the crazy one.’” As for online trolls, Paris isn’t concerned. “Just block ‘em,” he laughs. “I have so much love, I don’t have time for hate.”
‘I practice esports 7 to 8 hours a day’
Max Baber, 16
Kenosha, Wisconsin
During a campus visit to Bryant & Stratton College in Milwaukee, Baber was told by one of the esport directors, “In two years, I’m gonna come and recruit you.”
Recruit him for what? Being exceptionally good at playing a first-person shooter game called “Overwatch.”
There are more than 60 colleges and universities in the US that recruit esports players — those who excel at online multiplayer games like “Fortnite” and “League of Legends” — in the same way they do varsity athletes. At the University of California, Irvine, gifted gamers qualify for scholarships worth up to $6,000 to play on the school’s varsity team, and they play in front of sold-out crowds on a 3,500-square-foot arena on campus that the school built in 2016.
Baber has been playing “Overwatch” competitively since he was 14. To be in the same league as his egame idols, players like Sinatraa and Ryu Je-hong, requires intense training. “It’s no joke,” Baber says. “You have to practice 7 to 8 hours a day.”
He’s currently got his eye on the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which has had an esports team since 2009 and now offers a “genuine full-ride scholarship for esports,” and Bryant & Stratton, where he received what he calls an “indirect offer.”
Baber admits he’s been slacking on the video games this year because it’s been affecting his schoolwork. “It’s definitely still something I want to pursue,” he says of his gaming career. “But it’s such a young and fragile market. I feel like I need a plan B. I’m not going to put all my eggs in that basket.”
As for his generation, he says it’s “up to us to fix” the big issues like climate change. “If we don’t look for solutions, nothing’s going to change.”
‘My Christian faith defines everything I do’
Abigail Murphy, 21
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
One of Murphy’s first real memories, when she was just 4 years old, was 9/11. She was visiting Brooklyn with her family — her father, a pastor in Michigan at the time, was in town for missionary work — and she vividly recalls the confusion, the adults crying, and her parents taking Murphy and her four siblings for a walk, just to remind them that they were safe.
“So much of that day colored the way I view the world,” she says. “There was just this feeling that we needed to do something.” Her family moved to the city three months later, so that her father could open a church in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, the Messiah’s Reformed Fellowship.
Today, Murphy is a senior at The King’s College in New York, where she’s majoring in humanities, and a member of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative think tank founded by William F. Buckley. “My Christian faith defines everything I do,” she says. “But we should be willing to engage with people who think differently from us. That’s how we grow and evolve and recognize the beauty and diversity in the world.”
Murphy has mixed feelings about her generation. “From what I can see among my peers, we don’t understand how to achieve our dreams within reason and with patience,” she says. “Depression seems more common than ever in teenagers and young adults, and we tend to overanalyze everything.” Much of that has to do with social media, which she avoids. “I hate it,” she says. “It’s harmful to our psyche.”
But in the real world, she’s eager to have difficult conversations. She describes herself as conservative but not somebody “who thinks secularism or liberalism is trying to take over the world,” she says. “I want to ask questions, and listen. I’m passionate about my beliefs, but I don’t think we should shy away or shut down people who disagree with us.”
‘I’m exhausted by all the bad things in the world’
Kendy Rudy, 15
Neshanic Station, New Jersey
How to sum up her generation in a sentence? “We’re just over it,” says Rudy. “My friends and I are exhausted by all the bad things in the world over our lifetimes, and we’re just teenagers.”
Rudy is still fuming about how her attempts to organize a school walkout in 2018, as part of a nationwide response to the Parkland shootings, were sabotaged. “The high schoolers got to do it, but the principal pulled the middle schoolers into the auditorium and made us stay there the whole time,” she says. “We had to listen to him ramble on about how protests don’t accomplish anything.”
Rudy says she often wonders how she’d react during an actual school shooting. “All the time,” she says. “We’re reminded of it with every drill.” The shooting drills happen so often that none of her peers take them seriously. “The other kids just assume it’s a drill and not the real thing, so everybody talks really loudly, waiting for it to be over.”
She’s not mad at previous generations for the legacy they’ve left — “I think they did what they could, they’ve just run out of ideas” — but she doesn’t sound especially hopeful for the future. She wants to work in prison reform and is inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (“I want her to be my grandma”), but at the moment her only focus is finishing high school “as fast as possible.”
“It’s too much,” she says. “Teachers will pile on homework every single night. The workload never ends. You just try to get a few hours of sleep before you have to get up and do it all again. Nobody cares what all of this stress is doing to us.”
‘I don’t get bent out of shape if people use the wrong words’
Avie Acosta, 21
Chinatown, Manhattan
In many ways, Acosta has a familiar story. A kid with big dreams and a cloistering family moves from a small town in Middle America — in her case, Edmond, Oklahoma — to the big city and reinvents herself. But Acosta’s journey is a little different. Born male, she first began transitioning in her teens. Feeling unsupported by her family, she moved to New York at 19, and after going on and off hormone treatments, she now identifies as gender nonconforming.
She came to New York with modeling ambitions — she booked her first fashion shows from Instagram, using photos taken “by my little brother in our family’s living room” — and has already worked for designers like Marc Jacobs, Moschino, and Random Identities, becoming the first transgender model to sign with talent management company IMG.
During her late teens, Acosta liked to describe herself as “unoffendable,” which was more wishful thinking than reality. “I was secretly so sensitive,” she says. But she’s finally reached a place where gender politics feels kind of meaningless.
“When people ask what my pronouns are, my response is either ‘I don’t care’ or for the sake of simplicity I might tell them ‘they, them.’ But I’m not going to be one of those people who gets bent out of shape if someone uses the wrong words around me. That’s just silly. It genuinely does not matter.”
She rarely socializes with her peers, preferring the company of Gen-Xers or older. “I don’t feel particularly connected to my generation,” Acosta says. “I’m not sure how I would define us. Maybe not a satisfying response, but that’s my truth at this moment.”
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