"In fact, Gen Z might just be the most risk-averse generation on record. Fewer Gen Zers got a driver’s license, drank alcohol, or had sex as teenagers than their parents did. The same young adults now report skyrocketing rates of anxiety and other mental illnesses, with some estimates finding that as many as 1 in 5 18-to-24-year-olds have been diagnosed with depression. Timidity—not to mention self-conscious neuroticism—is increasingly the norm.
“An ongoing study from Montclair State University argues that some of this risk aversion is due to the current political climate—or perhaps young people’s perception of it. “Gen Z’s mental health has deteriorated due to a worldview that the society and environment around them are crumbling,” writes justice studies professor Gabriel Rubin. “Rights are being taken away, the Earth is burning, maniacs could kill you with a gun, and viruses could shut down society again.””
See also, for counterpoint: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcperna/2024/06/18/gen-z-thriving-entrepreneurship/
I can attest to this. My kids and nieces/nephews are all reaching high school and they are so chill compared to my generation. They’re not interested in booze, sex, drugs or being out all night. They’re happy at home gaming together online or coding or something. It’s good really, we were not risk averse enough
18-to-24-year-olds
Weird grouping with Gen Z being 3 years older than the max
But the way they use the computer and internet shows they aren’t risk adverse, just different risks
The anxiety is probably because like millennials, they’ve been told the world is ending their whole lives and instead of doing anything about it we’ve just made the middle class poor
Don’t forget the rapid fire misinformation they are addicted too. Manipulation is off the charts
People like Tate and Peterson have done immeasurable damage to Gen Z… Instagram was deeply damaging to women’s mental health but the manosphere has done damage that will probably never be undone.
Millennials were not told that. Millennials grew up on in the golden era and then it all fell apart on them when they became adults. They were raised on high hopes.
I am a mid to early melenial. I was born in 1986. My first time concerned about the future was y2k. Yes, nothing ended up happening but it was a lot of doom and gloom(and long hours for the people preventing the doom and gloom becoming reality). I remember freshman year of hs when September 11th happened. Most of my friends graduated college in 2008-2009 during the financial collapse. We recover but significantly struggling more than expected and more than our parents. Now in the background there is still the Afghanistan and Iraq wars which seem to be at a stale mate.
The you have the chronic issues… Aids appeared in the 80s, probably never to leave. Global warming… Need I say more?.. The multiple diseases spreading like Sars.
Then you have the crazies pushing that a apocalypse will occur in 2012.
We get out of that all and enter into trump. Then covid 19 occurs. Now inflation.
What do we have to look forward to? The housing bubble collapse. Increase global warming. Automation reshaping the job land scape. The loss of the ability to truly own something. The same wage as 30 years ago with prices exponentially growing.
It was the golden age before mellenials… We just hung on through the downfall…
Fuck now I’m depressed…
Maybe that’s what makes millennials different. So many of the big scares ended up being big nothings.
AIDS was going to kill everyone… except it’s a STI, and now can be almost fully managed with drugs.
Weed was going to kill everyone and make everyone else go crazy… except it’s arguably less harmful than even caffeine, let alone tobacco or alcohol.
Y2K was going to end the world… except people put significant money and effort into solving it.
The hole in the ozone layer is growing… except we put regulations in place to stop it from growing and saved ourselves.
We managed to save ourselves, as a species, from all of these things. It wasn’t until 9/11 when we didn’t really know what to do and never really recovered from it as a society.
It makes sense that that’s often where people say the 90s really ended. And it’s a decent cut-off for when someone is Gen Z. If you don’t really remember 9/11 (and especially nothing before it), you’re not a millennial.
The US was fighting wars in the Middle East for the first 30 years of our lives, we watched the worst mass casualty event since pearl harbor on live tv, we lived through the worst economic crisis since the great depression, covid, tea party, trump, Katrina, isis, Putin, etc etc. When were these high hopes you speak of?
2008-2020, very high, me.
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Millennials include people 10 years older than you. We were definitely being sold a future of sunshine and rainbows until at least late high school, if not our 20s.
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Millennials were sold the same promises as Gen X, only it was quickly becoming apparent that those promises were straight up lies. The young millennials cam of age in the wake of the 2008 crash while the older ones lost everything in said crash. Zoomers are still being sold the American dream, only now it’s more of a hostage demand.
Yeah, my brother is an elder millennial (43), I’m 33. It’s wild the different stories we were told about how our lives were going to be. If he hasn’t gone into the military, I doubt he’d be any better off then I am, and I am… Not doing great, financially.
Yeah I’m 30 and had to explain to my father that he could raise a family on a single engineer’s income, but I wouldn’t be able to. That was when I was a teenager
Kyoto protocol was 1997, and that was just extending a climate treaty from 1992
You’re thinking of boomers
Interesting. There is a strong correlation between social media use and mental illness. I wonder if maybe there is some link at play here.
Unlike Millennials, gen z had social media as soon as their parents let them. I wonder if the social pressure of trying to maintain a presence on socials might be influencing the risk aversion.
There’s nothing like “Gen Z” or “Gen X”. Stop this bullshit that’s not more grounded than astrology. There’s cultural development in society, but it’s not restricted to an age cohort.
Perhaps “young people are statistically risk averse. more so than people older than them” would be better.
Is this another one of those articles where gen-xers and boomers blame the kids for the inevitable downfall of “western civilization”?
Hey, don’t lump gen X in with the boomers. We’re their original victims.
Hurt people hurt people.
“Thought terminating cliche”
I hate these articles that try to paint entire generations of people with the same brush.
All the pussies from that generation are too scared to be older than about 25. They’re all too lazy to be born before around 2000-something.
I don’t think any article about generations is doing that when they point out percentages vs other generations. Groups exist, generations are a thing. It’s gonna be ok buddy.
I think there are some things we need to learn about people that grew up on the unregulated internet. I normally hate generation generalizations but Millenials (at least us 80s kids) were the last people who got to grow up without the internet being omnipresent in our lives before we hit puberty.
You make an excellent point.
Hey look, it’s a description of me! 🙃
People love to scapegoat the parents of the prior generation but I believe we’re gonna find out the plastics or some other environmental toxin had a substantial impact and causal Relationship with this sort of thing.
Yes, or it could be the incredibly obvious fact that it’s a generation that grew up on media and technology that amplified fear and anger for profit and with corporate powers leveraging the most advanced technologies in the world to seek, compete for, gain, and hold attention as much as possible in almost every waking moment.
Well if that’s true, I sure hope they don’t become leaders in creative industries. There’s already a lack of risk taking in favor of bland bullshit that tries to have mass appeal.
Sorry to say that from the Gen Z I know they’re even more into big brands and “collabs”. It’s disheartening how much more deeply they’ve been sucked into the big corporate marketing machine.
Oh, hell, and you’ll be judged if you don’t conform. No other shoes than Nike, no other phone brand than Apple, no other earphones than AirPods, hell, I even got made fun of for my choice of wireless carrier (I went for the cheapest - rather than one providing unlimited data for apps like TikTok and SnapChat plus 5GB for other traffic for €17/month until the EU banned that crap, I chose 300GB for €12/month. But, it was the cheapest, so…)
There’s a big difference between not wanting to be a (teenage) parent and not having any imagination?
Maybe that’s why so many American young people voted Red in this election.
Keep them scared, keep them voting Republican.
In normal circumstances I’d understand that, but describing Trump particularly as risk-averse is kind of an interesting take imo
and here the rest of us thought the tumblr “guess i’m gonna die” memes were just silliness. guess they meant it, huh.
As the saying goes, there’s a grain of truth in every joke.
Uh… sports gambling?
Uh… what?
This article is focused on traditional measures of risk (drinking and sex) and is ignoring novel forms of risk… Gen Z appears to be extremely active in the gambling markets (particularly sports and political) in a way that older folks simply haven’t engaged in.
Oh. I see.
If it’s from MSU, it can safely be ignored.
Source: I went there. Gained nothing but a piece of paper. Lost time, money, and effort.
Skill problem.
