Compared to the childhood and adolescent years of Gen X, who - for decades - could only access computers and video games from the comfort of their home, Gen Z can engage with all types of media (music, gaming, social) at any moment of the day, breeding addiction, anti socialism, and over-consumption. A key example of this is public transportation. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any recent data on this, so I decided to create a small-scale covert investigation on the Newcastle metro myself. I observed a sample of 50 people sitting alone, representing both opposing generations, making realistic assumptions about who constituted each age category. A staggering 92% (46 out of 50 people) of Gen Z checked their screen at least once on their journey, compared to a relatively high 62% (31 out of 50 people) for Gen X. This data implies the habitual routine of checking notifications is synonymous with an addiction. The only interactions with strangers observed from Gen Z were brief pardons when getting on or off the metro. Our generation has lost the ability to interact with strangers and instead spends our time absorbed in our own lives, compacted into a smartphone.
Furthermore, our all-consuming obsession with social media encourages superficial relationships based solely on interacting with people’s posts to rank ourselves under materialistic standards, creating a dependency on constant external validation. This greatly impacts our concentration and stress levels, explaining the recent rise in physical media across Gen Z, such as vinyls, CDs, and digital cameras. Is this an attempt to distance themselves from screens, or a nostalgia only experienced through parents' stories reminiscing on ‘how good life was in their day’? While it’s useful to be able to contact whoever we want at any given time - potentially creating stronger relationships - I argue the point that ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’ as it means we don't keep constant tabs on our friends and significant others. For example, Snapchat’s infamous ‘snap-maps’ encourages surveillance of our friends and partners, creating toxic boundaries and stalker behaviour.
Overall, due to having this addiction from a time when our brains were malleable, Gen Z’s excessive habit of using smartphones will have a ricochet effect on our future children as we continue to use it every day of our lives, whereas some of Gen X will likely find the fast-growing pace of technology incomprehensible.