This article appeared on planning&analysis on October 15, 2019.
Gen Z is more concerned about growing up than about the conflict between the generations, and it is more difficult for them to do so today than in the past.
These days, Generation Z often lives in a sheltered gaming paradise until their mid-20s: More than previous generations, they experience full care and overprotection. Parents are usually tolerant and caring. They give their children a say not only in leisure activities and vacation planning. Most young people are therefore unfamiliar with experiences of lack and authoritarian restrictions from the analog world. And in the digital world with its games and social networks, they can playfully let off steam 24/7.
There is often a close bond with the parents. Young people usually do not question parental values. Instead, they cultivate the ideal of an intact family that understands each other and stays together, precisely because they always see the danger that in a fragile world, their own family can also break apart.
"Family is the most important thing."
Although the young people like their parents, they also experience them as joyless and tending to be obsessive. They see them as a "gray suit instance" that regulates, fulfills, procures everything, but at the same time lives and works ahead without fun. The life of parents is, so to speak, determined by a subject line, by a constant purposefulness: it always has to be about something specific, which is determined beforehand, then prepared for a long time, and thus has to be pursued consistently. They always focus on a specific goal, value what they have and want to stick to it at all costs. Even the mails from parents always have a subject and thus a defined occasion and topic. Simply posting a vague hello to friends and waiting to see what develops from it seems foreign or suspicious to parents.
"They always have to have a topic to write about. We often just say hello."
For Generation Z, growing up therefore means a radical change from a sheltered gaming paradise to a darkly purposeful life. Especially since their own expectations of this life are extremely high: they definitely want to be successful and earn a lot of money; ideally as a startup millionaire or as an influencer with countless followers. But the way to get there is unclear to many young people and little practiced. The fear of failing along the way is correspondingly great. In the in-depth interviews with young people, in addition to the success stories, the horror images of impoverishment, loneliness and drug abuse also emerge again and again. Thus, leaving the parental home is often experienced less as liberation than as an inevitable expulsion from paradise.
In this dilemma, Gen Z is developing various strategies:
Strategy 1: I am already an adult
The 17-22 year-olds demonstratively distance themselves from their younger siblings in particular. Compared to them, the 12-16 year olds appear to be immature and dependent on smartphones. By criticizing the younger ones for constantly hanging out guilelessly on the Internet, they claim for themselves the already adult position of reason and instruction. Sometimes they appear even more parental than the parents when they call on the parents to discipline the younger siblings more strongly.
"The younger ones are hanging out on their cell phones earlier and earlier and not going out at all. Parents should limit that."
Strategy 2: Big wide world instead of world of the big ones
Before the ultimate step into adulthood, many young people want to take a longer trip around the world. This moratorium is presented as a kind of maturity test, because the aim is to be as far away from home as possible and to enter into a confrontation with 'harsh reality' in, for example, Africa, Australia or New Zealand. It is often forgotten that the parents have an important back-up position. They are supposed to help organize and finance the trip, be available at all times via Skype, and start a return operation in case of emergency.
"For the older generation, this is completely new, that someone sits in front of the camera and just talks, the younger generation doesn't have this way of looking at things at all, it's completely normal for us."
Strategy 3: Chill out as stationary daydream trips
Chilling out is especially popular among young people. It frees them from all their duties for a while. The carefree phases of blissful idleness also convey a feeling of cuddly security. And in these cozy spheres, young people can enjoy dreaming about what great things they will become when they eventually get up and grow up.
"The older generation can't chill."
Strategy 4: Close your eyes and get through
However, young people can also counter their fears of growing up with a grim determination. They really tunnel in, focus on their goal and develop an unexpected straightforwardness. In order not to be diverted from the path to success, they look neither to the left nor to the right. Asceticism and control are supposed to ensure that one keeps up with school, studies, internship or training. The real life is postponed until later.
Strategy 5: Influencers as development workers
Influencers often take on the function of a big brother or big sister. Through their role model, they show how you can get ahead in life. Above all, their imperfection, their shared failures, and their failures make them seem not only honest and authentic, but also relieving and encouraging for Generation Z. They convey the confidence that despite partial failures, people can get ahead in life. Because they convey the confidence that, despite partial failure, something can succeed in the long term.
