What would you say is the most private space on your phone? Maybe your camera roll, your text messages or even your Tiktok drafts. You may not have recognized it yet, but the Notes app is by far the most private space on a Gen Z phone. Notes are where the unsaid things go. The things we type rather than confess, the plans we secretly whisper to ourselves, the feelings we’re not ready to say outloud. It’s our diary, our manifesto, our venting corner, our grocery list, and our therapist all at once.

Digital media researchers have actually begun paying attention to this shift. Cultural analysis from The Atlantic (2024) describes the Notes app as one of the last truly unperformed spaces on our phones: an internal archive where thoughts accumulate without an audience, algorithm, or expectation. Meanwhile, psychological research on expressive writing, such as work published in the Annual Review of Psychology (2020), shows that people often use private, unstructured writing to process emotions, regulate stress, and make sense of their lives. Taken together, this research helps explain why these digital fragments feel so intimate. They’re not just notes, but tiny acts of mindfulness.

When I asked 7 university students if they would be comfortable sharing a note, just one, even just simply the title, I watched each of them hesitate. They all aimlessly scrolled their notes while chuckling to themselves a bit, reminiscing on the moments these notes stem from. Some friends would eventually just hand me their phone, allowing me to take an unfiltered look into many different fragments of their lives. What surprised me most wasn’t what was written, but how much it meant for people to share it with me.

These notes aren’t biographies. They’re small unfiltered glimpses into the emotional architecture of being young right now.

But sometimes a glimpse is enough.

“V”

When told to scroll through my friends notes app, completely unfiltered, my interest was piqued by a note titled “V”. It reads, “So it turns out there’s something wrong with my lungs and I’ve been drowning internally.” It continues on, describing her fear and internal turmoil about having a tumour, unsure whether it was cancerous or not. This note is from my best friend, so the experience itself was less shocking for me. It was however shocking to hear how vulnerable this note was for her. I read it aloud for clarification that I could read it, and she disguised her fear with humour. The note isn’t dramatic, but it’s intimate in a way that had me stuck reading and re-reading. It’s a reminder that Notes is where someone’s private life is unedited, stripped of performance. It’s authentic.

“Things to do before we leave UBC”

After asking my colleague for a note, she appears extremely nervous and asks for a moment to go through them. After around 10 minutes of scrolling past many half-formed grocery lists, passwords, and to-do lists, she lands on a shared note from the end of her first year at UBC. It’s a bucket list she made with her best friends: go swimming at wreck beach, go golfing, have a movie night. She chuckles going through them all. They were such simple things, yet she still keeps the note. It feels like a suspended moment in time, written before the hard courses, knowing her major, and people drifted out of her life. It’s a digital equivalent to a pressed flower, one that’s ‘dead’ but a symbolic reminder of this pivotal point in her life.

“Weird Awake Dream Thing”

My partner shared a note that he had written after waking up from an odd, lucid-like dream. As he read out his writing, he seemed almost excited to share it with me. His note was written like a poem, going from one short, descriptive sentence to the next. He even read it like a poem, incorporating pauses and some one liners. Despite the writing, he said he only wrote it to speak about with his doctor. With that, it still felt like spoken word poetry, especially with the last sentence simply being “fear”. I’m doubtful that he explained his dream to his doctor exactly how it was written in his Notes. It was more likely written unfiltered, whereas the discussion would be more like ‘I was scared at the end’, rather than simply “fear”. This note felt cinematic of a fragmented world that only existed for a few seconds. It’s a note he will probably never show anyone else, but in this moment, becomes a tiny portal into how he makes sense of his inner world.

“2025 Social Goals”

After calling my friend to ask if she would be comfortable sharing her note, she took some time, scrolling through venting drafts and unsent messages before settling on an organized list she titled “2025 Social Goals.” The goals are small but tender like “LEAVE if you’re not having fun,” “Say Less,” “Invest more time in me than others,” “Keep your business to yourself.” While she read this out, she continually had side comments about whether she actually achieved the goal or not. This list was more of an intention and manifestation list rather than a bucket list, truly making this future feel possible. The note, while simple, is a quiet act of hope, and a reminder that sometimes the most ambitious thing you can do is choose to believe you matter.

“Windows to the Soul” & “What do I miss?”

When I reached out to an old friend and asked if he would share a note with me, he immediately jumped at the opportunity to share a set of two poems, one of which he had written only moments before our call. The poems are both about a girl he was interested in, the first, comparing her eyes to many things he adores about her. The second, being after she had significantly hurt him, with clear pain and hurt, explaining how he felt used. “Your eyes were but a window, not to souls or heavens gate, but to the reflection of a man who loved all himself to hate”. When reading out these raw, emotional pieces, the first he read was hopeful and happy. The second, he got louder, more emotional, and emphasized certain points. At first, I wondered why these were just in his notes, and not written in a document, or shared online. Then I realized, Notes is where the messy drafts live, the ones that hold the truth before the metaphors come in, the place where strong emotions rest, for you to later bring out.

“Joshua Indspire Award”

Upon asking a classmate to share a note, she took lots of time to pick the one she wanted to share most. Her chosen note entailed a paragraph about her brother for an Indspire award application. It is tender, proud, and careful with detail. She read it with a soft voice, feeling calmed by the thought of him. Her note shows how often we write about the people we love, not just in memorial, but to honour their accomplishments. I still am unsure whether her brother even knows about this note, but one day, when he gets that award, he will.

“Being Positive/Things I’m Grateful For”

When asking a close friend to share a note, she seemed slightly uncomfortable at the thought, but seemed to enjoy scrolling through her notes, while reminiscing about the moments that were written. She opened her chosen note, a list of things she’s grateful for, and before reading, she gave a preface that “this might be kinda cringe,” and then proceeded to read the note which also had a disclaimer that said her 5 hour hike put her in a really good mood. Her gratitudes: long hot showers, private quiet time, spending time with people, her puppy, and freedom. Her note is extremely grounding. She said that in this moment she had truly recognized the value of all of these things after being on a boat fully for her senior year in high school. Noticing how despite that sounds like such a cool experience, afterwards she had so much gratitude for the simple things in life, like showering, or following your skincare routine. It reads like a reminder, that whatever is happening around us, we can find gratitude from our daily lives.

“Humour is Good Medicine”

Considering I was able to get so many amazing people to showcase very interesting windows into their lives, I wanted to show my thankfulness by being vulnerable and doing the same. My note, titled “Humour is Good Medicine”, is a quote. It’s a quote from my mother, Jennfier Winters-Ward. My mother passed away from cancer in 2022, after only battling for 6 months. I think of her constantly, she is why I do everything I do, and put so much passion into my work. I will always remember her one requirement for me, to surround myself with those who make me laugh. One night, about 4 months ago, I was scrolling on her FaceBook page, with the aim of finding some baby photos of me. In one of the captions of a post, she simply put “Humour is Good Medicine”. This phrase, showcasing the one thing she wanted to stick with me through this world, was so impactful that I felt I needed to write it down. Just this month, I ended up getting the phrase tattooed on my back left shoulder as well. This note is simple, but means more to me than could ever be quantified. This one note is a small, yet significant window into my universe.

After talking to seven people, reading seven notes, and reflecting on my own, it becomes clear why both psychologists and digital-culture scholars pay attention to private writing. The Annual Review of Psychology discusses that unstructured, personal writing helps people process emotions and make sense of their lives. Meanwhile, cultural reporting from The Atlantic suggests that the Notes app has become one of the last digital spaces where we are unperformed, showcasing a quiet archive of our half-formed selves.

That combination of emotional processing and privacy is exactly what I witnessed. I’m convinced the Notes app is our generation’s truest archive. Not because it’s polished, but because it isn’t. It holds the versions of ourselves we don’t edit for an audience, the dreams that evaporate by the morning, the fears we can’t articulate, the love we have for others, the plans we hope and dream for, and the gratitude we never speak of. Notes is where identity is drafted, revised, and rediscovered. One line, one list, one vulnerable moment at a time.

Key Sources:

https://www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/psych/71/1/annurev-psych-010419-050944.pdf?expires=1764568559&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=29CE3784422C7178099624DEB25ED94A

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/notes-app-tours-personal-digital-history/679861/

To be nonchalant today is to be deeply invested in how effortlessly uninterested you appear.

On social media especially, nonchalance operates like a performance. The perfectly late texting cadence that’s the goldilocks of timing is all calculated. The Instagram posts that appear candid likely took fifteen tries. The I don’t care selfie is filtered, cropped, and debated in groupchats. Even dating hinges on it: pretend you’re chill about a possible partner, but privately overanalyze every comma in every text. This isn’t a lack of feeling, it’s emotions put through FaceTune.

Recent research supports this. The 2022 study Emotion generation and emotion regulation found that young adults increasingly engage in impression management online, consciously modifying their emotional displays for social approval (Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 2022). In other words, the cool detachment we associate with nonchalance is a learned behaviour, sharpened by constant digital self-surveillance. We groom ourselves not just physically, but emotionally.

This obsession also isn’t harmless. According to the Warsaw High School Times, the “nonchalant trend” has become a coping mechanism for stress and social comparison, with teens reporting that acting unbothered feels like a requirement, not a preference (Warsaw HS Times, 2025). Performing nonchalance creates an internal split: one version of you is spiralling, while the other posts memes about being dead inside. The more we insist we don’t care, the more pressure there is to maintain the illusion.

But what gets lost in this curated chill is humanity.

When the dominant emotional tone online becomes ironic detachment, sincerity starts to look embarrassing. Vulnerability becomes a risk. And talking about actual feelings: stress, desire, fear, confusion, feel like breaking character.

Some writers are already pushing back. A recent Trill Mag article argues for embracing self-expression as an antidote to nonchalance culture, urging young people to admit what they want instead of pretending not to care (Trill Mag, 2023). In a generation overloaded with information, expectations, and observation, choosing authenticity might be the real rebellion.

Language matters.

The rise of nonchalant as a Gen Z keyword shows how cultural norms shift through speech. The way we talk about emotions influences how we perform them, and how we perform them reshapes the emotional environment we all live in. Calling out the performance is the first step to realizing how much effort we spend trying to look effortless.

Nonchalance might look cool, but it’s exhausting. Gen Z isn’t apathetic; we’re overstimulated, self-aware, and scared that caring openly makes us look naive or try-hard. But pretending not to care costs more than honesty. The first step is admitting the performance is hollow. Indifference isn’t strength; intention is.

Maybe the coolest thing we can do is care out loud.

Key Sources Used:

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666915322000440
2. https://warsawhstimes.com/2025/06/10/the-trend-of-being-nonchalant/
3. https://www.trillmag.com/life/advice/embrace-self-expression-a-stance-against-nonchalance/