While Millennials and Boomers wage a battle in social media comments over who’s to blame for the state of the world, Generation Z is stepping up to tackle the problems.
As a parent of two teens, I’m around enough of them to see firsthand the innovative thinking inherent in GenZ young adults. Sure, their obsession with memes, vines, and snapchat drives me crazy. But they are generally bright, inquisitive, knowledgeable about world events, and tech savvy. While we constantly hear mention of “The Tide Pod Generation,” referencing a media-hyped series of incidents that possibly started with a satirical piece on The Onion, further research of Generation Z (children born from the mid-90s to the early 2000s) shows they are well-informed and determined.
Sure, their obsession with memes, vines, and snapchat drives me crazy, but they are generally bright, inquisitive, knowledgeable about world events, and tech savvy.
Born into a culture that includes homegrown terrorism, globalization, plastic pollution, climate change, and homelessness, Generation Z learns lock down drills in school, have been told for most of their lives that social security will not be there by the time they retire, and many of them grew up during the aftermath of an economic recession. They have information at their fingertips, as they tend to be attached to their internet-connected phones. But they’ve also grown up in a time of social activism and change, and they are much more tuned in to the daily workings of the world, with the internet, YouTube, Google, and 24-hour news media.
A 2018 National Society of High School Scholars Survey shows that 54% of Generation Z seek careers in science and technology, and they are on track to make up the largest percent of buying power in our economy. These two things combined suggest that we’ve groomed a generation of smart, powerful children, who know how to look for answers and want to prepare for their future.
And it’s not only their own future that Generation Z looks to improve. They are finding solutions to problems that affect society as a whole, or subsets of society often overlooked. These young minds have found creative ways to tackle those problems.
Five Gen Z Innovations:
1. Twelve girls created a solar-powered tent for the homeless.
2. This young man created an inexpensive 3-D printed prosthetic arm for children.
3. This young man created a cheap sensor test for pancreatic cancer.
4. Shubam Banerjee invented an inexpensive Braille printer from Legos.
5. This young woman created a device that cheaply harvests energy from the sun, wind, and rain.
And it isn’t only STEM careers where Generation Z excels. They have an unprecedented affinity for activism, and aren’t afraid to use it. After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida killed 17 teenagers, the students began a media and social campaign that propelled them into the fairly harsh spotlight. They organized, campaigned, and rallied. Parkland students invited others to join them, whose voices had not yet been heard. They advocated for gun control, tired of the fear of yet another shooting in an American school.
Gun rights advocates and the NRA, anxious to paint the Parkland students as “useful idiots” peddled conspiracy theories revolving around students being “planted by George Soros.” The students didn’t falter, and continued their activism, even when cameras and high-profile media personalities stopped showing up to cover it. Organizing a tour around the country, they continued touring as late as November of this year to speak out about gun violence and to help register students and others to vote.
It’s easy to take one event and characterize an entire generation, to dismiss them as “dumb kids.” But Generation Z, through STEM innovations, activism, and social consciousness, defies the “Tide Pod Generation” label. The next time you’re in the company of one, ask them the state of the country. Ask them what they plan to do with their lives. Ask them how they’re going to fix the world.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo Credit: Rawpixel on Shutterstock
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