Pupils
Generation Z
Helen Jeys asks if this is really the snowflake generation The teenagers of today are often cast in a really negative light. In a recent assembly, I reassured the girls at my school that the same was true during my own teenage years. I was a member of the so-called ‘Generation X’. Born between 1961 and 1981, I was apparently over-exposed to television and was the stereotypical ‘Latch Key’ child, born of the generation of ‘Boomers’ who were keen to explore careers of their own. Douglas Hurd, the then Home Secretary, said of us in 1988, that we had ‘too little selfdiscipline and too little notion of the care and responsibility that [we] owe to others.’ It seems that little has changed! Teenagers are still stereotyped and maligned by those who purport to know better. Today’s generation is, nevertheless, ‘different’ in what they are exposed to and what they have to face. The so-called ‘Millenials’ – those born between 1980 and 1996 - have grown up with computers, social media and huge technological advancement. This is nothing like, however, the digital natives of ‘Generation Z’ (those born after 1997) on whom sociologists are still drawing their conclusions. Generation Z are the true ‘wired generation’. They gather information quickly, they are global in their perspective, they are multi-tasking entrepreneurs who focus on the importance of individuality but they are also seen to be too concerned with political correctness; as ‘snowflakes’, they are easily offended, lack resilience and are emotionally vulnerable. However, there is so much more to the current generation than this stereotype. For instance, the risky behaviours usually associated with teenagers have reduced over the years. Cigarette smoking is at a historic low since peaking in the mid 1990s. Teen pregnancies are also at record low levels as well as teen driving fatalities and far more teenagers are likely to practise safe sex. Reports from 1980 suggest that about 55% of young
people used contraception for their first sexual encounter, now it is over 80%. All good! Indeed, Julie Lythcott-Hasims, the author of ‘How to Raise an Adult’ notes that even the possible negatives of social-media involvement have an upside: ‘I think we must contemplate that technology is having the exact opposite effect than we perceived … we see the negatives of not going outside, can’t look people in the eye, don’t have to go through the effort of making a phone call. There are ways we see the deficiencies that social media has offered, but there are obviously tremendous upsides and positives as well.’ Indeed, social media can and has been used for real good in recent years and can be associated with outstanding examples of young people who we can use as potential role-models for our current students. For instance, after the high-school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February 2018, Emma Gonzalez, became the leading light in the US of the #NeverAgain movement, protesting against gun violence. Such movements have rallied young people, united them in protest against a common cause and at a recent rally in Washington in support of this movement, Yolanda Renee King, the eldest granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr even revisited the famous speech of her grandfather, stating that: ‘I have a dream that enough is enough … And that this should be a gun-free world, period.’ Neil Howe, the American author and historian supports the view that this current generation will be one that will be remembered for positive reasons. He comments that ‘they’re very good at using rules to make their point, and they’re absolutely excellent at negotiating with their parents and negotiating in a reasonable way about how to bend these rules in a way that will make them more effective and give them more space … This is not a ‘throw the brick through the window and burn stuff down’ group of kids at all. They’re working very constructively, armin-arm with older people they trust, to make big institutions work better and make them stronger and more effective.’ Inevitably, this is not the view of all, however. Many commentators are less positive about our current teenage generation, for instance even stating, as Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University does, that the fact that teens are less likely to drink alcohol and have unsafe sex is not because of greater
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Summer 2019
