I recently had an encounter with a college student that made me stop and think. I’d asked what she felt was different about her cohort, Gen Z.
“I think we are more willing to be different,” she began. “We are more accepting and willing to express ourselves.”
Immersed as we all are in the negativity around Gen Z and younger people in general, I found her positivity refreshing. But I noticed that her statements all had negative implications, too. I wondered to myself whether her positivity was primarily an embrace of her own generation, or a rejection of the others.
Research might offer some insight on this front—or at least, some useful context. Young Life recently conducted a comprehensive, in-depth survey called The RELATE Project. What arose from talking to over 7,000 adolescents around the globe is that Gen Z is an empathetic generation, and they want to be known as such.
The two most common words these young adults want to be used to describe themselves are “kind” and “good.” When given a list of traits to choose from, the top two chosen were “loyal” and “responsible.”
This brought my encounter with the college student to mind again. Are they running toward those traits as a result of positive models in their own lives, or are they running away from the models of those who’ve failed to be kind, good, loyal and responsible?
My gut tells me they are running away from us. But I think there’s still time to change that dynamic, if we’re willing to put in the work.
And the first place we can start is by looking at them as individuals and seeing them, truly, for who they are. Ask any Gen Zer what they hear about themselves in the media or from older generations. You’re likely to be met with words like “weak,” “fragile,” “overly sensitive,” “flaky,” “self-absorbed,” “entitled” and worse.
But that isn’t who they are. It isn’t how they want to be perceived, either. Frankly, neither would I.
This just underscores that there is a disconnect between how Gen Z wants to be seen, and how older generations see and talk about them. So take a step back, before you pass judgment on the young adults in your life. Different generations have different ideas of what empathy looks like. They have different definitions of responsibility, and of maturity. But being able to recognize different forms of empathy, responsibility and maturity requires self-examination—and patience.
