Gen Z: The Demise of ‘Pics Or It Didn’t Happen’?
Millennials have been criticized for many things: being lazy, spoilt, dependent, entitled — the list goes on. Perhaps one of the most significant and talked of criticisms of this generation of baby boomer’s babies is their obsession with (and subsequent unhealthy use of) social media. ‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ is the phenomenon of online oversharing that has plagued those born between the early 1980s and mid 1990s (Gen Y) for practically the entirety of the social media takeover. Be that as it may, the latest topic of discussion is the next generation, Gen Z, and their departure from the oversharing age. Could it be that a resolve is in the works?
Who is Gen Z?
The definition is flexible. Some argue that Gen Z comprises those born any time between the mid to late 1990s and the present day, while others consider Gen Z to have been born from the early 2000s and onward. Roughly, though, the assumption can be made that the oldest of Gen Z would currently be 19 years old, or ‘barely out of high school’.
An age gap isn’t all that stands in between Gen Z and millennials. While millennials grew up with the advent of MySpace and the iPod, Gen Z were quite literally born into social media. Many of Gen Z have trouble remembering a time before smartphones and Facebook.
Purely based on their use of social media (or lack thereof) a number of habits can be identified as defining the core characteristics of Gen Z. Namely, the desire for heightened privacy, a distaste for online illegitimacy, and a genuine quest to make the world a better place. With the help of these three attributes, one can easily point out a distinct pattern of ‘disconnecting’ from explosive social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. At the very least, Gen Z is creating a shift in the way social media is being used to experience the world around us.
More privacy, please.
As a generation, millennials were somewhat aware but also somewhat lax about their online representation. “Make sure you can be found online”, and “be in control of the Google search for your name” are two examples of the advice that I, as a millennial, was given in reference to the employer crackdown on online behaviour. It is no surprise that scores of people were fired (in 2015 alone) for irresponsible social media etiquette. This includes but is not limited to online racial profiling, discrimination in general, bullying, and documentation of illegal behaviour.
On the contrary, Gen Z is far more aware of their social media footprint. Understandably, with the knowledge that online behaviour can have very real consequences, Gen Z has a desire for increased privacy. The proof? The category of apps that they have turned to in place of conventional platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Gen Z has been seen using apps like Snapchat, Whisper, and Yik Yak with increasing frequency owing to the fact that each of these platforms enables anonymity or, in the case of Snapchat, inability to permanently store content shared.
With Gen Z celebrities like Jaden Smith hopping off platforms like Twitter, it can be expected that at least a small portion of their millions of devoted followers would follow suite.
Say good bye to #goals.
Social media has, without a doubt, led to the “glamification” of mundane, everyday activities. The need and ability to prop and pose every element of every step of everyday is inherently present in most social media users today. What ensues is a host of comments portraying envy, awe, and admiration (e.g., “#lifegoals”, “I wish I had your life”.) What is even more absurd is the audience for which we contrive our lives so tactfully. More often than not, the average social media user’s followers consists of friends and strangers alike. This means that we desperately seek gratification via likes from people whose names we might not even know. Although initially founded as a means for reconnecting with old friends, social media networks quickly grew to become an extension of the everyday life for public viewing online.
In spite of being on the outer age limits of the millennial generation, Grace Savage, 33, quit Facebook in 2007. She aptly explained, “social media is a little bit of denial of that natural ebb and flow of life,” the reality that you’re not going to be friends with everyone forever.” She elaborates by saying that it creates an entirely false sense of closeness and connectivity. One that would be exposed right away if we were put in a room with all of our followers.
Another social media abstainer, Cathy (last name omitted for privacy) noted that she would rather live her authentic life offline than attempt to spin it in a way that would most please her followers on social media.
Currently, the social media playground represents a crowd of gratification-hungry children shouting the private details of their life to everybody and yet nobody, because the audience consists only of individuals mindlessly double-tapping at their smartphone screens, rarely ever stopping to read a caption.
And so, once again learning from the mistakes of their millennial predecessors, Gen Z is beginning to swear off social media illegitimacy. This behaviour can be seen clearly in the case of the infamous Essena O’Neill and the bandwagon of social media barbies that followed in her shoes by exposing the reality behind their idealized social media profiles.
Gen Z: On a quest to change the world.
Gen Z are defined as the more industrious and technologically astute than any generation that has come before them. Speaking specifically with regards to Canada, a director of one of the longest running summer camps in the country, Duncan Robertson, helps shed some light on the matter. Anything that needs to be said should be done over social media for the most efficient possible communication. Be it Facebook, or Snapchat. He himself uses emails only to forward official documents such as contracts to his employees.
Founder of WorkplaceTrends.com, Dan Schwabel, believes the best way to attract potential Gen Z employees is by providing compete organizational transparency. Gen Z are do-gooders who want to create positive change in the world. They have grown up in an increasingly tolerable and equitable environment, and want to be associated only with companies that share similar beliefs. By being exposed to the kind of company culture that organizations uphold in the most easily digestible way possible (via social media), members of Gen Z can easily be attracted to the companies they really want to work with.
Jennifer Posthumus of Employment and Social Services Toronto often helps youth connect with employers and their first jobs. She elaborates on the demographic and characteristics of Gen Z. They are diverse, and they want to turn hobbies into careers. They live and breathe social justice, as a result of the way in which current affairs unravel online today. Gen Z wants social advocacy to play as big a role (if not bigger) in their professional lives as does getting paid.
Where Hannah Horvath of HBO sitcom ‘Girls’ embodied the millennial woman, “self-involved, dependent, flailing financially in the real world as her expectations of a dream job and life collide with reality”, Alex Dunphy of ABC’s Modern Family is a representation of Gen Z. Gen Z are “conscientious, hard-working, somewhat anxious and mindful of the future.”
Gen Z have been described to be “millennials on steroids”. They have “the weight of saving the world and fixing our past mistakes on their small shoulders.” In addition to Gen Z parents playing a massive role in affecting the decisions made by their children, Gen Z understand that in order to succeed they must replace the millennial’s optimism with pragmatism.
Social media: good or bad?
On a final tangent, it is useful to consider social media at its core and whether the platform has positive or negative impacts on our lives. Studies exist to support both sides of the argument. A study by Ethan Kross of University of Michigan noted the increase of feelings of loneliness with an increase in use of Facebook in the day. Additionally, another study by German researchers sought to establish a link between feelings of envy and social media use. Envy on social media is a result of the social phenomenon of social comparison. Constantly being bombarded with details from peers’ lives can create an environment of negativity and cross comparison in which one starts to nit pick at the details of their own real lives in comparison to those idealized versions being depicted online.
Nonetheless, studies have also been published to prove that social media can have quite the opposite impact. Perhaps the most significant finding by Carnegie Mellon researchers follows the tail of the level and nature of engagement an individual has with social media. Those that displayed active interaction (i.e., liking, sharing, commenting, and posting) experienced more feelings of social bonding and less loneliness as opposed to passive consumers of social media (i.e., simply surveying and viewing news feeds.
The question then to be asked is not whether social media is good or bad. This creates a purely dichotomous situation. The truth of the matter is that the way in which we engage with social media transforms the quality of our lives for better or for worse. In the case of the millennials engagement with social media, many are now coming forward to find that their patterns of online behaviour might not be beneficial as imagined. Gen Z (for now) seem to be the proof of learning from mistakes of generations past, in that they are gearing themselves up to use social media in a much more productive way.
To answer the question, yes, perhaps Gen Z really does mark the descent of the ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ era.
