An Analysis about Generation Z

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Generation Z

 

You may have heard the term "Generation Z" once in your life in this modern society. First, 'generation' is a concept that combines people born at a particular time with shared experiences. In a traditional sense, it is divided into 30 years, and 20 years in generation theory. Generation Z refers to people born after 1996, a term commonly referred to as the 'modern generation' along with the 2030 generation. Understanding this Generation Z is more meaningful than simply figuring out what teenagers and their 20s like these days. Since it is a generation that will account for 40% of the total population who can consume goods or services in the future, many companies and brands are scrambling to read their desires. In addition, Generation Z, which strongly features three points, creativity, adventure, and spreading power, has a powerful influence and is leading the trend, so if you look at their growth, environment, culture, and values, you can roughly predict what society will look like in the future. That is why people are paying attention to them.
  The criteria for dividing generations vary slightly from country to country and research institutes, but generations are largely divided into three. Generation X, born between 1965 and 1979, Generation Y, born between 1980 and 1994, and Generation Z, born after 1995. In Generation X, at the beginning of the online era, one cell phone started to be used per one head. That is why changes began to come in the marriage, childbirth, and life cycle. Generation Y is currently in the mid to late 20s, and the smartphone era has begun and SNS became prevalent. Generation Z is a generation of children of Generation X, who are with high digital learning, called ‘Digital Native’.
  The biggest feature of Generation Z, where people's attention is focused, starts from the fact that it is a generation that naturally encountered the Internet from an early age. Since the mid-1990s, the third industrial revolution has accelerated with the activation of information and renewable energy development. As a result, the 4th Industrial Revolution invented cutting-edge technologies such as AI, IoT, and virtual reality. In other words, when Generation Z was born, the world was already using the Internet freely. Therefore, experts call Generation Z "digital native" because this generation has been playing with smartphones and tablet PCs since childhood. Generation Z means they are local in the digital world, as opposed to the previous generation that had moved from analog to digital, called ‘digital nomads’. Generation Z, who is familiar with IT technology and uses SNS as a means of socializing, has three characteristics.
First, freely communicate and actively share. It communicates through free messengers without being restricted by time and updates its daily life through Vlogs posted on YouTube or Instagram. According to a survey by ‘Creteo’, more than half of Generation Z uses Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook at least several times a day and stream videos for more than 23 hours a week. While interacting on social networks, they gain stability like real friends and follow or subscribe to their favorite celebrities on SNS. In addition, it is natural that people are interested in social issues as quickly and easily as they can be accessed.
  Secondly, they prefer videos. they like images more than writings and videos more than images. Even when acquiring information, previous generations used newspapers, magazines, and paper books, but now they use short videos. We can see this directly through the huge popularity of YouTube, TikTok, and Likee. So many companies are developing interesting media contents to meet the needs of Generation Z, which led to the growth potential of the entertainment sector. On the other hand, several concerns have been raised about the possibility of development in the media. Generation Z relies too much on intuitively visible media which can reduce the ability to read and imagine text, and gradually concentration and intelligence are declining, only using short, intuitive stimuli. Even a new word ‘popcorn brain’ shows the brain reacts only to strong stimuli, like a popping-out popcorn. This shows the reality that brains get accustomed to fast and strong stimuli, being no sensational to common stimuli.  
  Third, they seek individuality and diversity. Generation Z tends to embrace other people's differences as they are, rather than focusing on what they want above anything else. Generation Z takes a more realistic view, comparing to the Millennium generation who has been trying to dream of an ideal lifestyle for the future. Generation Z accepts the fact that there is no perfection, respects other parts in themselves, and pursues its unique personality. They have a clear sense of independence and purpose. They have an underlying concept that their own eyes are more important than others' eyes on new and diverse tastes. For example, Generation Y generally consumes only two or three brands, but Generation Z actively searches for unknown brands and uses different brands for different products. This can be seen as freely expanding the brand spectrum to suit each person's tastes.
  Generation Y was born between 1980 and 1994, and Generation Z was born shortly after 1995, but they are very different. There are various opinions about this, one of which is because their parents' generations are different. Generation Y's parents were born between 1950 and 1964, and Generation Z's parents were born between 1965 and 1979, the X generation. In the past, Generation X was called the ‘most progressive generation ever’, because it rejected the competition-oriented mind of the baby boomers who lived in a period of rapid economic growth and insisted on individualism and diversity. Generation Z naturally possesses value individuality because some of the values of the parents' generation are inevitably inherited from the children's generation. In addition, Generation Z is more open to other cultures, races, and lifestyles, as they frequently encounter themselves and others through the Internet and SNS.
  Generation Z is often regarded as liberal in foreign countries, but in Korea, whose older generations are conservative, think they are excessively individualistic and unpredictable. It is said that conflicts between them and older generations are frequent in group social life. But now in 2021, there is one more reason why we should pay more attention to Generation Z. In this situation of Covid-19 which has never been experienced before, it has led to social change by taking advantages of being more flexible in change, familiar with online, and fluent in SNS than any other generation. In this Pandemic situation, they made a ‘COVID-19 map’ donating their talents, and spread the good influence by conducting a ‘challenge’ to the medical staff. In the future, it is important to make efforts to closely look at the generations that are powerful in trends and the overall flow of society through them. We all need to think about what position we should take, drawing a picture of the future in which our individuality will be distinct.

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Professor's Comment

: In this essay, you have described the generations, but you haven’t done much of an analysis. You might have taken the concept of digital natives and then done an analysis on how this growing up with the Internet has influenced interpersonal communications. You have a little of this, but it could have gone much deeper.

Score = 94

 

In fact, I still can't get what an 'analysis' is and how distinct and deep should I write.