Generation Z Will Save the World

It’s time for us to speak for ourselves — and we need you to listen.

I spent 16 hours and 48 minutes on TikTok this week, according to my iPhone.

But believe it or not, my average is low compared to others in my generation. My sister reached over 30 hours a few weeks ago. A girl on my FYP (‘For You Page’) claims she hit 96 hours once. I’m a little skeptical, but she did post a screenshot as proof.

It might seem like Generation Z doesn’t take life seriously. After all, we invented “ok boomer” and Debby Ryan memes. We’re young, too — most of us can’t even (legally) drink alcohol yet.

But the oldest of us, born in 1996, are already transitioning into adulthood. And soon, we’ll dominate the workforce and become society’s leaders.

It’s time for the world to listen. We’re not little kids anymore. We need you to understand our minds and hear our unique perspectives. We need you to keep showing us humanity’s good side, especially through dark times like these.

And most of all — we need your trust, and we need you to find hope in us. Because despite outward appearances, we’re the best people to create a better future.

Generation Z has never had it easy.

We were born at the turning point of a millennium.

We were born in the era of Columbine, the Dotcom bubble burst, 9/11, and the Iraq war. Our first pandemic, SARS, happened in 2003. We were too little to remember the world back then, but the wake of these events no doubt affected us.

I was in kindergarten when I experienced my first lockdown drill.

I cried as my teacher turned off the lights and pulled down the curtains. My class huddled behind the bookshelf, frozen in fear, the occasional whisper silenced by a loud shush.

Over time, I got used to them. Still, I never understood why someone would want to come to kill us when I barely knew what death was. The threat of a school shooting looms in the back of my mind, even today.

Later on, my generation endured more outbreaks, the 2008 market crash, and the rise of political tensions. We fell victim to the skyrocketing depression and anxiety rates. And now, the Coronavirus has taken special events away from us, while all we can do is hide from the outside world.

But we don’t want you to pity us — instead, the events that happened in our short lives prove our strength. As we watched the chaotic world around us, we felt powerless and restricted by our young age. Yet, we learned from your mistakes, and you taught us the goodness in humanity.

Despite enduring these horrible events, we were also born with infinite knowledge at our fingertips.

“Google” was among our first words, and since we were born with internet access, it means something different to us. It’s not a search engine — it’s the gateway to the universe. The online world is as real as the physical world. We’re digital natives, and we speak this language as well as our native tongue.

Because of all this, we’re smart.

We’ve always had a million bits of information thrown at our faces. Knowledge overwhelms us. The internet gives us much more than what we’ve learned from school, as we use Youtube and other websites to learn about our favorite topics.

We’re fast learners and multitaskers, always observing the world around us, eager to obtain more knowledge.

The limitless possibilities the internet has always offered us let us grow up with big aspirations for ourselves.

For example, I started writing online when I was twelve. My stories were awful, yet the experience further drove my desire to be a writer. Moreover, it allowed me to meet other like-minded individuals, which opened up the world to me.

Our generation is so diverse that we don’t even recognize diversity.

Equality isn’t something we think about. It just is. It’s the default.

The internet gave us access to anyone from anywhere, and we are the most globally connected generation. We can relate more to someone our age on the other side of the globe than our grandparents.

We’re exposed to not just the “right or left” opinion, but a million views about a million different topics. We value each person for who they are, not how they look, because on the internet, it doesn’t matter.

Offline, most of us can’t remember a time when there wasn’t an African-American in the white house. Nobody made us believe a woman couldn’t be president, and we’ve grown up watching women take on prominent roles in politics.

And growing up in an increasingly polarized political climate has made many of us wary of the two-party system in America.

In an interview with Teen Vogue, Carolyn DeWitt, president and executive director of Rock the Vote, says, “[Gen Z] is a particularly liberated generation… They reject labels and putting things in boxes and that tendency isn’t exclusive to politics…They’re rethinking and reimagining systems and institutions and terms and even ideas.”

In addition, our top three voting concerns are mass shootings, racial inequalities, and immigration policies. Compare this to the top three for Generation X and Baby Boomers, which are healthcare, terrorism / security, and national debt.

Gen Z is passionate about creating a better future. We understand that though we are the most diverse generation, inequalities still exist, and we’re motivated to fight for justice.

So hear us as we move into adulthood and take over the workforce. Hear us because we still look up to you for guidance through this transition. Hear us because we’re powerful, intelligent, and enthusiastic.

We’re about to change the world.