It’s no secret that Generation Z is growing up in a very different world compared to older generations. The rapid growth of technology has forced our generation to grow up in a digitally dominated world and has had a large effect on our priorities and opinions about how we should be living our lives.
Because of these drastic changes, older generations are struggling to understand our choices. They believe that our generation has been led astray and we are a weaker and lazier bunch than them, but that simply isn’t true. Generation Z should not be labeled as the laziest generation just because we grew up under unique circumstances and are choosing to do things differently.
An argument often made by older generations against Gen Z is that the use of technology makes our lives significantly easier because we have the whole world at our fingertips. While there are obvious benefits to having the internet for school and work, it also increases the amount of expectations put on you. Put your phone down for thirty seconds and suddenly you have missed five emails from your teachers, three phone calls from your boss, and ninety four text messages in a group chat fighting about the project that is due at 11:59 p.m. Because we are able to connect with each other at any given time, the world moves at an extremely fast pace. It’s not slowing down anytime soon and Gen Z is working really hard to keep up.
Another problem technology has forced onto Gen Z is too much exposure to real world issues at a young age. Because Gen Z was the first generation to grow up completely online, there weren’t enough boundaries around what we were being exposed to. Older generations give us an extremely hard time for being too sad or complaining too much, but it can be hard to stay positive when our innocence was demolished by grotesque videos about politics, violence, social injustices, climate change, and much more.
In fact, according to CNN, researchers found that Gen Z is much more likely to report that they are feeling anxious and lonely than any other generation. These feelings can lead to depression and lack of interest in things that they are normally excited about. Older generations are mistaking our suffering with laziness because they aren’t willing to listen when we try to explain ourselves.
Because Gen Z has grown up looking at the entire world at once, online and through social media, we also know how much the world has to offer. This has changed our perspectives on how much time and effort we should put into our careers. Other generations may be content working endlessly, but our generation has been exposed to so many travel opportunities and fun activities, making us unenthusiastic about spending our days chained to a desk. Older generations call us lazy because they think we are unwilling to work hard at all, but all we truly want is to avoid spending all our time working and to make as many fun memories as we can.
Older generations have judged Gen Z before we were able to prove our worth. People born in 1997-2012 are considered to be a part of Generation Z. That means that someone in Gen Z could be as young as eleven years old. No one has their priorities straight and their life planned out at eleven years old, not even in past generations. The rest of our generation is still in school or new to their career, so it’s not surprising if we are more interested in having fun rather than committing our time to our careers or schoolwork. Older generations are acting like they were ready to drop their whole life for work and responsibilities at our age, and that it’s only appropriate that we do the same. Gen Z is not ready to give up the fun things in our lives yet, but that doesn’t mean that we are never going to be willing to work.
Gen Z actually has to work harder than past generations to be able to succeed. Not only is getting accepted to colleges a challenge, but being able to afford college is slowly becoming an impossible task. According to U.S. News, the cost of tuition has been on the steady rise for at least two decades now, and this price doesn’t even cover the cost of housing, food, transportation, and other school related expenses. Because of this, many students now have to hold down jobs, get scholarships, or have a stellar academic performance to be able to pay for college without having to take out large student loans that will drag them down for decades after they graduate.
Someone from an older generation could argue that young men our age used to go off to war and fight for their country and young women used to carry many children and took care of a house and family, and that Gen Z is lazy because we aren’t sticking to those classic roles. This argument is not very accurate though, because in 2022, the U.S. military had 1.4 million active personnel, and there are millions of women that take care of families in the US. There are many men and women that aren’t sticking to their stereotype, though, and older generations are mistaking this beautiful freedom for laziness. Just because someone doesn’t fit into their outdated role, doesn’t mean they are living their life incorrectly.
Gen Z is able to take action when they feel strongly about something. Recently, college protests have swept across the globe. Students at universities, including Columbia, UCLA, and the University of Texas at Austin, are calling for a ceasefire against Palestine. These students are paying attention to world events, forming opinions, organizing protests, and standing up for what they believe in with strength and respect. Regardless of your political opinion, anyone can recognize that these actions are far from lazy.
Older age groups need to stop making snap judgments towards Generation Z. We may do things differently than they would, but that doesn’t make us a lazier group. Our priorities may lie elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean that we are wrong. Gen Z is a colorful, outspoken, and powerful generation that is going to impact the world in ways that we can’t even imagine, and we work hard every single day to make the world a more accepting and safer place for everyone. Older generations are wrong to label Gen Z as lazy.
