In just a few days, research has shown that gen Z like binge drinking, hold more traditional gender views, have started Chinamaxxing, prefer solo dining and believe environmental values are as important as physical attraction.
A search for the term on Google brings up millions of articles meticulously documenting every aspect of gen Z behaviour – from their finances and mental health, to their food habits and hobbies.
They’re arguably the most studied, analysed and surveyed generation in history. So why are we so obsessed with gen Z?
Many say the internet and social media play a big part – born between 1997 and 2012, gen Z were the first to be fully immersed in the technology from infancy, and that sets them apart from the generations that came before them.
“They’re the first generation growing up with ubiquitous technology – some had social media profiles even before they were born,” said Paul Redmond, former director of student experiences at Liverpool and Manchester universities, who now delivers talks on generational diversity.
“So there’s a lot of curiosity there, and they are demonstrating very different behaviours than other generations have.”
He said things like gen Z’s approach to work (they’re more likely to jump around jobs), and their different spending habits make them ripe for studying and surveying. Employers want to know how to hire them, companies want to know how to sell to them.
This has led to the rise of gen Z-driven marketing agencies, which know that companies, now spearheaded by gen X – roughly those born between 1965 and 1980, are desperate to connect with this cohort. “They are the generation that grew up through the social internet, economic instability, anxiety around climate, the pandemic, and now there’s AI,” said Joanna Allcock, brand and growth director at Seed marketing agency.
“This combination has really changed how this generation finds belonging, how they form opinions and how they choose brands as well. So organisations are trying to understand how influence spreads and how to stay relevant in a culture where everything is changing all the time.”
But this clamour for insight has also led to a proliferation of duff surveys and often meaningless polls. “I have a Google Trends alert on for gen Z, and I get inundated with emails every day – 50% of our office is gen Z so we can see how much of it just isn’t true,” said Allcock.
Jenk Oz, the founder and CEO of Thred Media, says gen Z are studied and analysed more simply because they can be – their online presence from a young age means they have provided the world with more data about themselves than previous generations.
“We saw similar initial interest in every generation that came before them, but gen Z’s interest continues to grow because they provide what everyone has longed for for many decades – continuous real-time data from the source itself,” he said.
He added that they were on track to be the richest and highest spending generation by 2035, and between them and millennials, they would make up a third of all wealth – so the obsession is mainly fuelled by money.
Others say society has throughout history fixated on young people, and the obsession with gen Z is just the latest iteration of that. Prof Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said the obsession with gen Z has descended into a form of hysteria.
“Every single generation will think the current generation of young people is the worst ever,” he said. “Previously millennials were the youngest adult generation and they were getting all the stick, with their love of avocados or top knots.
“Now it has transferred to gen Z, but it is worse now because we’re in a more conflictual social media environment.”
He said that while there were some attributes that could be defined as gen Z, many other things were simply a result of life cycles (and would probably change as people aged) or the time period in which everyone was living.
“For instance, there is definite truth in delayed adulthood for gen Z, that things are happening later,” Duffy added. “They’re living at home longer, staying in education longer, getting married later, having kids later.
“But most of what we see in the media on gen Z is marketing nonsense and hysteria.”
He added that labels like gen Z were appealing in an online age – they were an “incredibly efficient way for headline writers and people on social media to get across an image really quickly”.
Duffy also said the disconnect between different generations, who may often rarely communicate outside family, was fuelling myths and stereotypes about gen Z.
“We’ve got very separate digital lives, where different generations are doing different things to different intensities on different platforms,” he said. “So we’ve got big gaps between the generations now, bigger gaps now than we had in the past outside the family, and that is where these stereotypes breed.”
