Skype is almost as old as I am, and it is too late for me to ever use it — the video and messaging app is now shut down for good. Such is the case for young people at large, who have grown up with a constantly shifting ground beneath them.
That pattern is most salient in the realm of technology, where innovations and updates to innovations function exponentially. Hard to believe that, once, Skype was so popular, and so new, as to be the sort of metonym for “video calling” that Zoom or FaceTime are now. Yet that brevity is a typical experience of Generation Z: Nothing stays for long, because something more worthwhile is imminent. What to hold onto is lost in the mix.
Of course, it’s unfortunate that technology constitutes “the ground beneath” Gen Z. And so the experience naturally expands to their social and interior realms. Part of that is because technology is so pervasive. But another, perhaps larger, part is that the prominent technological innovations targeted very human inclinations.
For those on the older end of the generation, life before the iMac (Apple’s desktop computer) simply never was. Google came about the same year, along with the GameBoy. These are all pretty cool things to have available, that is, until newer versions date them out of use. So it was when the next coolest and slimmest iMac emerged in 2002, and everything else, such as gaming systems and web browsers, continued to adapt with it. At the younger end of Gen Z, everything is digital: Updates have mostly to do with the media available rather than the physical gadgets. The first-generation iPhone skyrocketed to where we are now, with front cameras and maximal screen size. Social media and internet addictions mean constant connectivity and short attention spans.
That’s not to blame everything on Apple, but it means something to dominate the industry. Apple, Apple-like products, and especially the online platforms that live within these technologies have undue influence on how Gen Z interacts with the world. Smartphones and internet access shape what relationships and information mean. Human friendship is more effortless and more complicated. It’s easier to lie, but it’s also easier to find oneself lonely. Learning is devoid of experience, and knowledge is one-dimensional. What people mean and what life means, then, is never settled, always up for grabs, and increasingly self-referential. In short, Gen Z has significant forces acting against its ability to grasp existence and creation.
Two outcomes come as a result. Young people create their own system, or they find an existing one. That is how it goes for most people of most ages. But this age is determined not to join the “nones,” and so the search signals one of two distinctly Gen Z forms. Some, primarily young women, lean hard into understanding God as “universe” and try to “manifest” their way into what they wish for themselves. Self-referential, entirely secular. It is influenced by a feeling of loss and by politics that emphasize independence.
GEN Z POLITICAL GAP BODES WELL FOR MARRIAGE
The other half swing back against the same politics, into things more traditional. Limitless technological capability has taught them that the ultimate groundedness lies where control does not. Well-established, conservative religious sects define this option inasmuch as they have defined morals, priorities, structures, and truths. Further, Christianity, and further, Catholicism. Young people are converting in droves to Catholicism. In the United Kingdom, Gen Z Catholics outnumber Anglicans. Now, with the papal conclave in convention, young people with traditional preferences are the subject of continued speculation.
But will it all last? It’s likely that Gen Z, itself, is unsure how momentary its interests are. Given the depth of these questions, though, there should be a considerable shelf life.