Has Generation Z Been Groomed for the COVID-19 Crisis?

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The world is dealing with an unprecedented crisis in the form of COVID-19. To say there is widespread panic and anxiety across the globe is an understatement. What started as a small scale, newly-discovered respiratory virus in China, spread all over the world within a matter of months. Today, much of the world is in lockdown as people are working from home, borders are remaining closed, and all forms of socializing are being restricted.

‘Social distancing’ is the new world order.

In the face of this crisis, does the youth have the edge over their parents and grandparents? Or are they panicking more than the generations before them? It is interesting to understand how the latest generation, Generation Z, is coping with the new world reality.

How Generation Z Differ From Others

Perspective of life

Generation Z is more realistic compared to previous generations. This attitude is perhaps because of Generation Z’s parents, who had seen much of their savings vanish with market crashes around the great recession. And then they have seen the colossal student debt of both Generation X and the Millennials. Therefore they have little love for accumulating debt (Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z Explained, 2019; Jenkins, 2017b).

Changing careers

One of the trademarks of the millennials was their desire to change careers (job-hopping). This change in jobs was a stark contrast to the previous generations and a trait that gave millennials a reckless and selfish impression. In contrast, Generation Z does not like to change organizations that much. 75% of them desire to change job roles from time to time without changing the organization (Jenkins, 2017b). They are more interested in learning new skills rather than using the same set of skills to get a better job elsewhere.

Social media

The millennials were the pioneers of digitalization and social media. It is true that 90% of baby boomers now have a Facebook profile, and the average person from generation X spends 7 hours per week on Facebook (Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z Explained, 2019). But no other generation uses Facebook as much as the Millennials. Then comes Generation Z. They were born to a world with social media, Wi-Fi, and smartphones. For 40% of generation Z, a good Wi-Fi connection is more important than a functioning bathroom (Jenkins, 2017b).

Another change in the way the Generation Z handles social media is that they are very protective of their information. Millennials would post anything on Facebook and Twitter; the same is right about earlier generations to a lesser extent. But the post-millennials are not happy to have their thoughts posted on their profiles forever. They fear that their prospective bosses will see that and make things awkward at the office, to say the least (Jenkins, 2017b).

Entertainment

Now there are more entertainment modes than ever before. Baby boomers used television as their primary mode of entertainment. The generations after found entertainment related to the internet to a greater extent. But Generation Z seem to be entirely dependent on the internet for their entertainment needs. They seem to have less interest in television since they have been accustomed to living with on-demand videos. Streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video are replacing TV cable and even movie theaters to an extent. As technology continues to advance, Generation Z may also develop more interest in virtual reality games over traditional video games played by the previous generations.

And now, smartphones are taking the place of televisions and large gaming consoles. A new streaming service called Quibi distinguishes itself from the saturated streaming-platform ring because its content was made specifically to be viewed from a smartphone. Still new to many, Quibi "quick bites" is a streaming platform that delivers short-form programming spanning scripted series, documentaries, and reality TV to your cell phone.

And here's the kicker, episodes are only 7-10 minutes long! I can't help but think these shorter episodes cater to the dwindling attention spans of the newer generations. The average attention span of Millennials is 12 seconds and for Gen Z is only 8 seconds! A tradeoff that has been made up by these generations through multitasking. Gen Z can use five different screens at the same time, up from the three screens used by the millennials (Tom J Law, 2019).

Playing a game while watching a movie or reading a book while chatting with a friend are things that are second nature with Generation Z.

Communication

Born into a world of digital communication—with text messages and instant messages as the norm—one would expect Generation Z to prefer this as the primary mode of communication. But it is not the case. 74% of post-millennials prefer face-to-face communication over text-based communication with their colleagues (Jenkins, 2017b). However, it is not the same as physical face-to-face communication. What many of my friends and other post-millennials love is video calls such as FaceTime.

Will a global village possibly help Gen Z in dealing with global crises such as COVID-19?

Buying habits

Generation Z was born into a world of online marketing. They have the luxury of receiving stuff to their doorstep within hours by a simple tap on their screens. They use virtual transactions more than any other generation. Physically shopping in a mall or going to a physical bank for their financial needs will be bizarre things for the post-millennials.

Depression and Anxiety

With all the technical expertise and the comforts of the world around them, post-millennials have the highest rates of anxiety and depression among all generations (Liz Swan, 2020). The millennials are anxious about housing, education, and career prospects. But the post-millennials are generally worried about life–the good, bad, and ugly. This could be attributed to the post 9/11 world to which they were born which had constant wars, racism and bigotry, and the ever-impending threat of mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and even nuclear war.

Impacts of COVID-19 on Generation Z . . . A Silver Lining Perhaps?

As psychologist Liz Swan puts it, COVID-19 may be the best thing that ever happens to Generation Z. It seems like a rather harsh statement to make on a generation. But as I have talked with several professors who teach Generation Z in college, her points do have some validity. What she argues is that Generation Z had always lived with anxiety, panic attacks, and depression all their lives. They are worried about missing college parties, being rejected by peers, body image, or not being able to live the lives of an Instagram celebrity. Well, now they can finally see there are worse things in the world (Liz Swan, 2020).

School closure

One of the first public responses to the growing pandemic was the closure of schools. The colleges soon followed. Students were forced to study from home and join virtual classes. Most of Generation Z had no trouble adapting to digital education, but there were problems nonetheless.

Schools were a haven for children who had trouble at home. For many, it was their means for two out of three meals of the day. And it provided them with the social interactions they wanted. The same was true for the college students, who left home to experience a new life who are now forced back home to live with their parents for the foreseeable future (Mull, 2020).

E-learning

E-learning could not be a challenge for a tech-savvy generation like Gen Z. While it is true to some extent, e-learning has met with some restrictions. Courses that require hands-on components such as chemistry labs and dance classes are not all that easily taught over distant learning platforms, yet. However, issues surfaced from COVID-19 have released a wave of creativity and innovations, particularly for online and remote education. For example, in NYU’s own Rory Meyers College of Nursing, students are learning through virtual reality simulations with voice-activated nurse avatars. Sounds straight out of a sci-fi movie if you ask me!

The loss of social interactions children get at school, however, may be harder to combat (Mull, 2020). Another downside is that the parents are now working from home while supervising the studies of their young children. Some of them do not have the abilities or time to help their children with studies if teachers are not as easily accessible anymore. Others do not have a computer at home, or access to reliable internet facilities, leaving such children at a great disadvantage during this period.

What is now obvious is that the pandemic is widening the gap between the rich and the poor. The students from poor communities, who were already finding it hard to pursue higher education, now find themselves at a much deeper disadvantage to their uptown peers (Mull, 2020).

Post-COVID 19 world

Baby boomers

The baby boomers were the most vulnerable age group for the COVID-19, after the silent generation. This vulnerability will force them to stay at home more than the others. It will be a trying time for them to learn new digital technologies for their daily needs.

Baby boomers will find out how easy it is to shop online and get stuff delivered. They will have a great time using Skype and Zoom to connect with their friends and family. Even when the pandemic is gone, the chances are that these technologies will remain with them (Glazer, 2020).

Generation X

As for Generation X – who has already climbed the career ladder – this will be a time to re-evaluate their values. Most of the corporate leaders from Generation X will make plans to transit their businesses to future generations smoothly. There will be changes in careers and people taking time off to teach the youngsters and to volunteer to get the economy back in tracts (Glazer, 2020).

Millennials

The millennials would have their lives changed completely in a post-pandemic world. All this time, the millennials were taking things too lightly, accumulating more than enough debt, changing jobs as they wished, and being optimistic about prospects. All these were good in a world of prosperity. But the economic recession of the post-pandemic world will make many of them pursue stability as generations prior did.

There will be millennials who will cut off their expenses, trying to pay off their debts as soon as possible, and trying to stay in one organization for long (Glazer, 2020). The millennials would finally give up on their over-optimism of the world and try to come to terms with their newfound reality.

Generation Z

Unfortunately, it will be the Generation Z, who will have to face the full brunt of COVID-19. They will lose their dream job to unemployment. They will find that their parents’ assets vanished overnight, and now they could no longer apply to the Ivy League College they were eyeing all this time. They will see how their parents struggle to keep food on their tables, and some would soon find themselves without a place to call home.

It will be interesting to see how the traits of the post-millennials would help them to survive in this new world. Anxiety and depression will go up with the uncertainty they will have to face (Fuse, 2020). But they will find comfort in the fact that they had already decided to look for education options outside colleges and had plans to stay in one organization for long. The traits of ultra-digitalization will help them to be competitive in the future corporate environment. And their independence and do-it-yourself attitude will help them to be more frugal in times of need (Jenkins, 2017b).

Why does this parent-child dynamic sound familiar? Ah yes, it seems to be completely opposite the way latchkey kids of Generation X had it where the norm was being home alone without supervision. This parental attachment is a slippery slope, however, that has already been sled on by some Gen Zers and their Gen X parents.

As the economy and technology have advanced from when Gen Xers were kids to now adults, many jobs in the workforce are suitable for work-from-home. And, there are now alternate, arguably more flexible, ways to make a living through consulting, freelancing, and independent contracting which was not really the case for the parents of Generation X (Noguchi 2018). According to a 2018 Marist poll by NPR, 1 in 5 jobs in America is held by a worker under contract and within a decade, contractors and freelancers could make up half of the American workforce. Many Generation X parents have jumped at this opportunity.

What's the result? Parents are spending more time with their children and engaging in their kids' lives more. Although these parents obviously mean well for their kids, closeness can very quickly turn into control, a notion encapsulated by the term helicopter parents.

As Gen Zers are coming of age, the effects of helicopter parenting are starting to reveal themselves.

Julie Lythcott-Haims—author of How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare your Kids for Success and Stanford University's dean for ten years—was initially puzzled by the growing number of students who seemed to lack the ability to make their way independently in the world. But, after several years on the job, she believes she cracked the case.

It may be too late to change the parenting dynamics between Generation X and Generation Z, but I was hopeful the next generation would be able to strike a better balance between family connection and independence and between mental health and realistic success.

But, does COVID-19 completely derail this notion and hope? Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this.

Most parents are undoubtedly becoming closer literally and figuratively with their kids which may result in parents being even more involved in the lives of the Generation Alpha, for better and worse. As social distancing becomes the norm family dynamics are bound to change, and it is likely that Generation Alpha will see even more involvement from their parents as they are constantly together at home.

However, in some cases mothers and fathers on the frontlines are having to distance themselves from their own families and young children to protect them. These two drastically different situations that have arisen from COVID-19 seem to further the divide amongst people and other families. COVID-19 is clearly not “the great equalizer” many said it was.

Many are comparing COVID-19 to past paradigm-shifting events such as 9/11, so allow me to dive a little deeper into this comparison.

On September 11, 2001, as the nation mourned the unthinkable terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, America rallied behind New York City as the city became the "national locus of grieving," and Manhattan became America's "grief-stricken sweetheart." People across the nation stood in line to donate blood, sported NYPD and FDNY gear to show solidarity with the heroic first responders and everyday heroes as they pledged to rebuild New York.

Over 18 years later, New York City is once again crushed most severely by a crisis; however, this time, they have not received an outpouring of national love and support. Instead, they have been shunned and shamed.

New York's governor Andrew Cuomo has been ridiculed by the president as the governor urgently requested for help for his suffering city.

Not only has the president been slow to send federal aid to the city, but last week he announced that he believed the city and its hospitals were actually being untruthful about the need for ventilators: “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on March 26. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators."

Many other government officials have followed suit. Florida governor Ron DeSantis accused cities like New York "to just be airdropping in people from the hot zones." Another state official even called New Yorkers "criminals" implying they are intentionally trying to spread the virus. As New York City once again becomes the hardest hit US city in a crisis, this time it’s doing so as an outsider, a criminal, an unwelcome foreigner.

Global crises are trying times for everyone from all walks of life. With COVID-19 and the feeling of isolation it has brought, it is even easier to fall into a spiral of distress and frustration, something Generation Z is probably more familiar with than any other generation. Maybe COVID-19 will be a growing period for Generation Z where we build our resilience and see the world as it is, holding back from worrying about minor things. If anything, COVID-19 has made the shortcomings of many systems we rely on all the more obvious. I, for one, am inspired by the changes and innovations that have already begun to prepare for inevitable future crises. Despite their young age, Generation Z has already shown evidence of an active social and scientific conscience as activists such as Malala Yousafzai who at age 18 became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

More recently, one college sophomore from Arizona State University created ismyinternshipcancelled.com which lets students submit information and keep track of which companies are still accepting new people during this crisis and whether those internships can be done remotely.

Now is the time more than ever to leverage our skills and mindset. The alarms may have sounded later than desired but we can only move forward now. Let’s see what we got Gen Z. The world is counting on us.

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