Get to know Generation Z more deeply

Gen­er­a­tion Z is often dis­cussed among soci­ety as the lazy gen­er­a­tion, the lying down gen­er­a­tion. Some peo­ple in soci­ety say that the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion is a spoiled gen­er­a­tion, they want every­thing to be human and only heal. Is it true that it’s like that?

“Ah, that’s all I’m com­plain­ing about. When Mama was your age there was­n’t any over­think­ing,”

“When Dad was at school, his bur­den was heav­ier. “There are no online motor­bike taxis, you have to go through rice fields, climb moun­tains, brave storms,”

Wow. How did Dora’s friend Dora The Explor­er’s father man­age to climb all the moun­tains?

Wow, there’s no need to dis­cuss this, guys, back to the dis­cus­sion about Gen Z.

What is Gen Z?

Sim­ply put, Gen Z is the next gen­er­a­tion of Gen­er­a­tion Y. This gen­er­a­tion only appeared in the 2000s, mean­ing that Gen­er­a­tion Z is now around the age of 20.

Characteristics of Generation Z

Why is it called Gen­er­a­tion Z, the answer is sim­ple, guys, because it is adjust­ed to the pre­vi­ous let­ter order, where there are old­er sib­lings from Gen­er­a­tion Z, name­ly Gen X and Gen Y. Gen Z also has younger sib­lings, name­ly Gen A or Gen­er­a­tion Alpha.

Accord­ing to senior researchers, McK­in­sey gen­er­a­tion Z has the char­ac­ter­is­tics of being tech­no­log­i­cal­ly lit­er­ate, cre­ative, accept­ing of dif­fer­ences around them, car­ing about social prob­lems and lik­ing to express them­selves in cyber­space or real­i­ty.

Advantages of Generation Z

1.Technology Literacy

Tech­nol­o­gy Lit­er­a­cy or the cool lan­guage is Tech Savvy, gen­er­a­tion Z grew up in an era that is rapid­ly grow­ing with tech­nol­o­gy. Inter­net, social media, food order­ing appli­ca­tions, trans­porta­tion appli­ca­tions, online dat­ing appli­ca­tions, and many more. Even Gen Z in Indone­sia occu­pies the top posi­tion for spend­ing the most time surf­ing in cyber­space. On aver­age, each Gen Z spends around 7–13 hours a day.

2. Creative

Try ask­ing your par­ents or grand­par­ents. In the past, what did they dream of becom­ing? Maybe the answer is not far from doc­tors, civ­il ser­vants, pilots, or archi­tects. Well, thanks to the pres­ence of the inter­net, our gen­er­a­tion is much more cre­ative in mak­ing mon­ey, espe­cial­ly those relat­ed to the cre­ative indus­try. Such as con­tent cre­ators, pod­cast­ers, vlog­gers, and even estab­lish­ing their own start-up com­pa­ny.

3. Accept Differences

Gen Z’s char­ac­ter is to accept dif­fer­ences. This is not with­out rea­son, because on aver­age Gen Z is very easy to get infor­ma­tion when surf­ing the inter­net. So from this, they accept the dif­fer­ences that arise. As today’s kids say, it’s called open mind­ed.

4. Care about others

“Twit­ter please do your mag­ic”

Even though they often lie down while scrolling, that does­n’t mean Gen­er­a­tion Z is apa­thet­ic. In fact, they are the fastest when it comes to dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion and find­ing solu­tions. For exam­ple, there are grand­fa­thers sell­ing cakes at the sta­tion, Gen Z can just upload a pho­to of the grand­fa­ther on social media and col­lect dona­tions. This is in line with the nick­name ‘The Com­mu­na­holic’, name­ly being involved in the com­mu­ni­ty and tech­nol­o­gy to pro­vide ben­e­fits to the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

5. Enjoys expressing

Gen Z is also nick­named ‘The Unde­fined ID’. They like to express them­selves to find their iden­ti­ty. For exam­ple, the Citayem Fash­ion Week per­for­mance was attend­ed by Jabodetabek teenagers to show their fash­ion style. Apart from that, Gen Z is also try­ing to build self brand­ing on social media. There are those who like OOTDs, like sports, and even try food in all cor­ners. Every­thing is immor­tal­ized via Tik­tok, YouTube or Insta­gram Sto­ry.

Disadvantages of Generation Z

Nobody is per­fect, includ­ing Gen Z. This gen­er­a­tion is not the best of the exist­ing gen­er­a­tions. Because Gen­er­a­tion Z has sev­er­al short­com­ings which are the rea­son why Gen Z is hat­ed by pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions.

1. FOMO

The first dis­ad­van­tage of Gen Z is FOMO or Fear of Miss­ing Out. To under­stand bet­ter, you can read my pre­vi­ous arti­cle which dis­cuss­es FOMO.

Gen­er­a­tion Z is known as a gen­er­a­tion that relies on tech­nol­o­gy, espe­cial­ly the inter­net and social media. Every day, Gen Z is pre­sent­ed with var­i­ous infor­ma­tion, includ­ing what is trend­ing today. They can feel bored, afraid of being labeled as not cool, and anx­ious if they haven’t tried trends on the inter­net.

2. High Anxiety and Stress Levels

Accord­ing to research con­duct­ed by the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion, the stress expe­ri­enced by Gen Z is due to the pan­dem­ic, uncer­tain­ty about the future, bad news on the inter­net, and social media. Gen Z has high expec­ta­tions for their per­son­al lives, so if things don’t go accord­ing to their wish­es it will trig­ger stress.

It can­not be denied, social media has cre­at­ed stan­dards in var­i­ous aspects. When is the right time to grad­u­ate, work, get mar­ried, and have chil­dren. For those who have not achieved it, this is a fac­tor of anx­i­ety or anx­i­ety.

3. Easy to Complain and Self Proclaimed

Even though they have the abil­i­ty to search for infor­ma­tion from var­i­ous sources, in real­i­ty Gen Z absorbs and match­es infor­ma­tion too quick­ly with what they feel. Such as label­ing your­self as some­one with bipo­lar dis­or­der, lim­it­ing your social inter­ac­tions because you are an intro­vert, and so on. Gen­er­a­tion Z makes this an obsta­cle to progress. Gen Z is also called the straw­ber­ry gen­er­a­tion because they seem spoiled and eas­i­ly stressed.

How to Be a Better Gen Z

We have dis­cussed the char­ac­ter­is­tics and short­com­ings of Gen Z. Do you think this match­es what you are liv­ing now? For me, yes, haha­ha. But, don’t wor­ry, there are var­i­ous tips for becom­ing a bet­ter Gen­er­a­tion Z!

1. Reduce Expectations

Whether it’s col­lege, a part­ner, or the future. In life there are some things you can’t con­trol, aka just let it flow. Keep try­ing, do good to oth­ers, and pray to God.

2. Appreciate every process

It’s okay to fail many times or be under­es­ti­mat­ed. Don’t be lulled by oth­er peo­ple’s suc­cess posts on social media. Indeed, every­one has dif­fer­ent priv­i­leges. But, that does­n’t mean you can’t cre­ate your own ver­sion of the best life.

3. Communication to Professionals

Anx­i­ety, stress, or a quar­ter life cri­sis may be part of Gen Z’s dai­ly diet. I always remind you to con­tact a pro­fes­sion­al coun­sel­ing ser­vice or psy­chol­o­gist so that you can con­tin­ue your activ­i­ties com­fort­ably. Avoid self-diag­no­sis and tak­ing med­ica­tion with­out super­vi­sion from a psy­chi­a­trist.

4. Give yourself positive affirmations

Pos­i­tive affir­ma­tions can be inter­pret­ed as praise. No, but appre­ci­ate what you have done so far. You can make a jour­nal to write things that make you grate­ful. Small progress is still progress.

5. Maintain Privacy

Express­ing on social media is fine. How­ev­er, still pay atten­tion to pri­va­cy before upload­ing con­tent to the inter­net. Think again about whether what you upload will have an impact on your life in the future or will actu­al­ly hurt oth­er peo­ple. Dig­i­tal traces are scary.