During their adolescence, teenagers often experience emotional distress that stems from their apprehension of the future, however the circumstances that are faced by Generation Z (current adolescents) may differ significantly from those faced by older generations because of varied social and political factors that characterized their childhood. As a result of an increase in technological availability to current adolescents, there has been conjecture that they may have a higher dependency on technology that may cause them to have different social needs that could affect the severity of which apathy is experienced during their adolescence. Although apathy may not be unique to adolescents in Generation Z, the ways it manifests and its overall impact on them may differ from how it impacted adolescents from the Generation X and Y cohorts.  

There were 28 total respondents, and because of a lack of respondents from individuals in the Generation Y cohort, analysis was focused on comparing the results of Generation X and Z respondents.      

Two question topics provided the most material to draw analysis from, such as Questions 9 and asked the respondent about their level of concern with pursuing some form of higher education or technical training after high school. All respondents from Generation X, and 96% of respondents from Generation Z answered that they were either extremely or fairly concerned, which indicates, at least within the confines of my study, that there are some topics that evoke the same level of concern across both Generation X and Z. Alternatively, question 10 showed the opposite results, and it asked the respondent about their level of concern in actively preserving the environment, and every respondent from Generation X answered that they were either somewhat or not concerned, whereas 75% of the respondents from the Generation Z cohort were either fairly or extremely concerned, which indicates that for some topics, the concerns and level of apathy for the different generations may be varied, and that there may in fact be some differences in how different generations experienced apathy during their adolescence.

Overall, within Generation Z many of the responses appeared to be spread out with no specific pattern, indicating, at least in the context of my study, that general attitudes may be difficult to identify within a specific generation. 

The question of “how the current perceptions of teen apathy within Generation compare to those held during the adolescence of those in a part of the Generation X and Y cohorts” attempted to tackle the larger concept of whether generalizations made about the adolescent attitudes of one generation versus another are warranted, and it focuses specifically on apathy because of its connection to despondency and can be connected and tied to an array of environments that adolescents often find themselves in. Also, beyond the expression of apathy itself, it also looks at the different priorities of adolescents that may not be acknowledged by older generations, and a lack of variation among experiences of apathy would only prove that the labeling of teenagers as indifferent beings is simply being an anecdote used by adults to describe individuals who currently behave like their past selves. 

Not being shown to be more apathetic that their predecessors, those in the Generation Z cohort may simply hold different concerns, therefore indicating evidence that there may in fact not be a new epidemic of general feelings of apathy, but on the contrary, this study has proven that there are some concerns that a majority of adolescents have across generations, as well as more heightened concerns of the current generation, that instead of being labeled as apathetic because of a shift away from the values of their elders, current adolescents may simply be going through a common developmental milestone and are experiencing and coping with similar adolescent stressors differently, which may or may not continue as they mature into adults.

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