GEN A(LPHA) GET REAL, AND MEAN ABOUT GEN Z.

(Trigger warning - don't read if you get easily upset!)

Back in 2015, about when my first book, Generation Z: Their Voices, Their Lives was published, I encountered my first real example of what I would come to coin as ‘generationism’ which was essentially a prejudice characterised as one generation having a largely negative opinion of another generation: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/generationism-societys-last-acceptable-prejudice-pandemic/

As I interviewed Gen Z and watched their conversations on social media, it was obvious they had a pretty dim view of (my generation), millennials, casting them as whingeing Tumblr-obsessives, who dressed basic, socialised basic, ate basic and couldn’t meet anyone without asking them what Harry Potter house they were in. They were also extremely derisive of millennials’ social media habits, as Gen Z would come to be diehard TikTok addicts and have a low opinion of the OG-places made popular by millennials – Instagram in particular. Millennials didn’t take this very well and responded in a quite millennial-y way by applying lots of self-care and probably retreating to a well-thumbed copy of the Deathly Hallows.

But the wheel of time waits for no one and now Gen Z are staring down the barrel of their twenties and (gasp) thirties, Gen Alpha (2011-2024) are now the scrappy new kids on the block and they have opinions on their older generational counterpart.

Now, I could have done a very funny and mean collection of stats and quote from Gen A about Gen Z, but what I thought was more useful was how these were often framed as mistakes made with Generation Z (usually through no fault of their own) or things we should do better with Gen A(lpha) which will make them more resilient, happier, have more experiences and be more confident about taking on the world than their older Z-counterparts. (Trigger warning) – some of these comments might irk Gen Z, but they’re an interesting perspective on how quickly times are changing and how we can avoid some of the things that have made the world and adulthood hard for Generation Z.

I’ve included the quotes that came up many times with slight variations – so these were consistent themes in GA reflecting on GZ.

Take it away, Gen Alpha…

Ali (12): Eurgh, literally every Gen Z I know lives for TikTok and has ADHD – it’s like they all have the same personality and decided they were all going to have the same problems. Who decided that? It’s weird – we’re very different.

Leo (13): I can’t stand TikTok. It’s all so ‘look at me’, ‘look at me.’ I will never use TikTok and none of my friends do. Snapchat and Discord all day.

Farzana (11): My sister (22) has one bad thing happen to her and has a meltdown. She’s not even a teenager anymore and her car broke down and she was hyperventilating and crying and Dad had to get her a paper bag to breathe into. It’s a car, not someone dying and all her friends are exactly the same – total drama queens – and the boys are even worse.

Lyra (11): My sister (21) has a meltdown if she has to book a doctor’s appointment. My Mum has to book all her appointments, and they argue about it all the time. She’s started refusing and my sister got so, so upset. I offered to book it for her in the end.

Kane (11): My older cousins are all Gen Z, most of them are in their twenties and they seem to be unhappy all the time and none of them are enjoying university and two of them don’t have any idea what they want to do, so don’t do much. One of them has depression and I feel bad for him. He’s, like, twenty-five, so quite old now. But most of all, there’s not much difference between us – they game more than I do and spend way more time on their phones than any of my friends. I think I’d like to be a bit different when I’m that old.

Craig (10): My Auntie is twenty-five and my Mum calls her Baby because she doesn’t want to learn to drive a car, and she still lives with my Grandma and they have fights like my sister and mum. My Auntie is really nice and she’s brilliant to play with because she’s not like a proper grownup. She’s also on her phone all the time and she cries at everything. The dog chewed her trainer and she went nuts.

So, what can we take from all these observations that might help Gen A?

1.) Gen Z were the beneficiaries of an extremely supportive school system and sometimes excessively overindulgent parenting, which in some ways arrested development. In Gen A encourage independence, experiences away from home and decision making – this will really pay off when they become adults.

2.) Normalise and encourage small things like booking appointments, talking to people directly and being somewhat control of their personal habits and autonomy – this will foster an independence that will make some of the things you have to do as an adult seem less jarring and scary.

3.) When Gen Z were little, we didn’t know about the dangers of excessive phone use. We do now. Whilst banning of phones isn’t necessarily the answer, young kids and tweens don’t need to be on social media or have access to the internet 24/7 – and sleeping with phones should be an absolute no/no pre-16.

4.) Be positive – we absolutely hammered Gen Z with negative messages about the future at a formative age and then the end of the world kind of manifested with Covid – we’ve got to find a way to make Gen Alpha feel positive about the future, as this will have manifold benefits from better mental health than Gen Z to a more hopeful, can-do attitude.

5.) Encourage Gen A to be far more critical about what they read and see on social media. Gen Z were the first digital natives and have a lot – too much – faith on what they learn about on social media – which can and has sometimes led to a skewed idea about the world and self.

6.) Be wary of Snapchat. Lots of parents and carers are super happy Gen A have favoured communication-based social media like Snapchat over the more broadcast/brand-building TikTok and Insta. But Snapchat is not like WhatsApp and has just as much bullying, toxicity and negativity swirling around it – it’s just harder to monitor and it disappears without a trace, which obviously can have dark implications.

7.) Let’s build a world, where the opportunities for young people are taken far more seriously, starting with what higher education costs, the terrible rent market, the inaccessibility of the housing market and the brutal job market. Young people have to feel like adulthood is achievable and a nice place to be if we want them to go there – these are reasonable aspirations for Gen Alpha and Gen Z, and every generation should be committed to helping the generations behind them level up and even the world to be a little better than it was for them.