Gen Z has a lot to teach us ... if we’ll just shut up and listen

By Emily Banks Wooten [email protected]

To his credit, my husband has always been a good judge of character in that, basically, he doesn’t judge others. He’s extremely level-headed and is always willing to look at people/things/ issues from multiple points of view, a trait in him that I admire.

He is a community college instructor and has been for roughly two decades so it’s fair to say that he has his finger on the pulse of the younger generation, much more so than myself or many of our peers. There’s no telling how many times over the years I’ve heard him comment that if we’ll just get out of the way, our daughter and those from her generation will fix the world that we (previous generations) have all but ruined.

While I do not doubt him, it really became even more clear for me after listening to a panel called “Reaching Gen Z in your market” during the Texas Press Association Annual Convention & Trade Show earlier this summer. The panel featured three college senior journalism students and was moderated by Austin Lewter, Director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism and an instructor of journalism and broadcast at Tarleton State University, and Julie Reed, a student media advisor at Baylor University.

Short for Generation Z, Gen Z is the demographic that succeeds Millennials and precedes Generation Alpha. It includes those born from 1997 to 2012.

“Oftentimes, we don’t realize how old we are and how young they are,” Lewter said, starting the discussion.

Giving an example, he asked the students what was the first national news story that they remembered. For one, it was the suicide of Robin Williams (2014). For another, it was the Sandy Hook school shooting (2012). For another, it was the SeaWorld trainer that was killed by a captive male orca (2010). I imagine hearing this was as much of a gut-punch for the others in the room as it was for me because for the majority of us, we can vividly remember those three specific events because it seems that they didn’t occur that long ago. It was a good lesson in relativity.

Lewter asked the students to share some of the stereotypes and negative generalizations about Gen Z. The answers were interesting:

• “People think we’re lazy, and don’t want to work.”

• “We don’t all eat the Tide Pods.”

• “They call us whiners, complainers, snowflakes, but we grew up in a world that’s so chaotic and we want to change things. It just shows how passionate we can be.”

• “You’re just glued to your phone, tablet or computer. But we’ve learned so much through technology, and social media is how we communicate with the community and we’re reaching bigger audiences through technology.”

As all this was soaking in, Lewter continued, “The Tide Pod generation, the COVID generation, the school shooting generation … Why are they so anxious? They have a damn good reason. We will be fine if we let them figure it out.”

Reed agreed. “These are some of the hardest-working kids I’ve ever had. Technology-wise, they’ve learned a lot. And they are very concerned about mental health,” she said.

Reed also noted that 2024 is the first graduating class since COVID. “These students did not have high school graduations, they did not have proms and their college experiences have not been the norm.”

In addition to all three students attending classes and working in student media, each holds down two part-time jobs.

“They are so much faster and so much further along,” Lewter said.

As I shared the info from the panel with my husband, he wholeheartedly agreed.

“They’re very engaged. They understand the problems of the world better than we do and they hold us accountable for not solving those problems, which they should, that we should have been dealing with all along.

“It’s a different job market than we had. Nowadays, the same opportunities aren’t there for Millennials and Gen Z. I think it’s terrible that we ridicule young people for trying to change the world. We were idealistic one time, and now we just project our cynicism on them.”

I think of our own daughter, about to leave for college. She’s light years ahead of where I was when I left for college. Her knowledge and grasp of current world events continue to amaze me. While it is natural as her parent for me to worry about her, there’s another little voice inside my head saying, “She will be fine. They all will be. Just let them.”

Like the famous quote from German polymath and writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “There are two lasting things we give our children. One is roots and the other is wings.”

Let’s step back and allow Gen Z to soar.