A Better Babysitter
Whenever I stumble upon news articles on Twitter, I often see headlines like “millennials are lazy,” or “millennials are ruining the diamond industry.” These rage-fueled pieces are written by misguided baby boomers trying to make sense of their changing world. It’s always about millennials. Looming in the background, however, is my generation: Z.
Here is some information about Gen Z. We grew up at the same time the technology industry was growing. Most of us don’t remember watching TV on a small, chunky TV. The only CD I ever owned was the soundtrack to High School Musical 2. The iPhone came out when I was eight years old, and its design reached its peak at the exact same time I was old enough to have one. Gen Z never had to take computer classes or read instruction manuals, because the development of technology was parallel to our development.
For readers who aren’t 100% connecting to my nostalgic facts, some statistics might help you understand Generation Z. According to an infographic published by VisionCritical, 70% of Gen Z-ers watch 2 hours of YouTube per day. I am aware that this doesn’t sound good, but keep this in mind: a Pew Research study found that Gen Z teens typically work on homework for one hour per day, compared to teens in the 90’s that only worked on homework for 30 minutes per day.
You may be wondering how we accomplish doing so much homework while consuming so much media. In short, it’s because we’ve never done anything else. Television and YouTube have been daily staples in our lives since we were allowed to use them. It makes sense to us to do whatever homework needs to be done, and then relax by consuming some media.
The rapid development of new technology has been great, but even young people realize its drawbacks. The creation of Instagram and Snapchat allowed for easy communication with friends, but lead to a striking blow to teenage psyches. We love using these apps, but any teenager will admit that constantly seeing the best parts of other people’s lives leads to self-image issues and toxic mentalities.
The rise of “influencers” — internet celebrities promoting brands — is a key factor in the epidemic of teenage girls feeling bad about themselves. On Instagram, we constantly see images of girls showing off their “perfect” selves, which results in the need to compare ourselves to others. As we all know, comparison is the thief of joy.
Because of this, we all feel the pressure to replicate perfection on our own feeds, and many teens become obsessed with how many followers they have, or the number of likes on their most recent post. There are even apps that can link with your Instagram account and schedule your photos to be posted at the time of day to achieve maximum engagement. Deep down, I know this shouldn’t matter, but for some reason, it just does.
In a different vein, I also grew up in the era of Uber. I don’t remember the last time I was ever in an actual taxi. Apps like Uber and Lyft are so convenient, it doesn’t make sense not to use them. Someone recently pointed out to me that technology has become a babysitter for adults. I always cringe at the phrase “there’s an app for that,” but there really is. We don’t have to leave the house to get food from a restaurant, or even to get groceries. We can even hire a stranger to build our furniture with apps like TaskRabbit.
It’s great to have all of this at our fingertips, but where are the social and emotional sides of this caretaking? I often use meditation apps, but they don’t offer personalized emotional support when I may need it. Technology has done so much for us, but refuses to fix the one problem it created.
That’s where Blue Fever comes in. We realize that Gen Z survives off of technology, and we want Gen Z to thrive as well. Blue Fever wants to be more than another electronic babysitter. Blue Fever wants to be a big sister. Through the use of artificial intelligence, we provide personalized emotional support to users, tailored specifically toward young women, because we know that that’s what’s lacking in the media world.
The technologically-charged mental health crisis is an all-hands-on deck situation. Mental health apps do exist, but Blue Fever takes this idea and makes it personal. If we can demand rides, groceries, and carpenters at the touch of a button, we should be able to demand moral support just as fast. Blue Fever is the platform that can make that happen.
https://www.visioncritical.com/blog/generation-z-infographics
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