What’s Weighing Down That Backpack
PEW’s latest research illuminates the timely issues Gen Z is working through in their coming of age. According to 13-17 year olds, what makes it hard to be a teen today is not as much mental health concerns (3%), violence or drugs (8%), or even really bullying for that matter (7%). The leading pain point in their culture? A third say it’s “pressures and expectations”. The generationally unique context behind this data point however, is a brewing social anxiety at the intersection of achievement culture and uncertainty in career trajectory.
Young people have been coming of age in an achievement oriented culture for decades, with heightening levels of everything from extracurricular activities, to college admissions, to student debt, to internship and job applications. In 2008, The Washington Post wrote about The Amazing Adventures Of Supergrads, marveling at how the most accomplished graduates ever produced by the American college system were heading into the workforce. Despite overcoming the pressures of their upbringing by checking all of the right boxes, this slice of a generation entered the workforce during The Great Recession. They did all of the right things but the goal post had moved further, if not disappearing entirely from the field.
As today’s emerging generation goes back to school, they are navigating a different, but familiar, flavor of uncertainty. A culture of over-preparedness remains, but the impending impact of AI in the next 5 or 10 years, makes it difficult to know what aspirational end result a 17 year old, for example, is working backwards from. In the same way The Great Recessiononce changed the playing field for achieving success, the potential impact AI might have on tomorrow’s jobs, irrelevant and relevant skillsets, has today’s young people gambling with uncertainty around the ROI in their achievement efforts. And this comes on the heels of a culture already losing confidence in the value of a college degree, with admissions declining by 8% since 2019 alone.
The New York Times shares an inspiring take on this issue, pointing out that historically technology offsets job losses with job creation. The article acknowledges, “there is a long tradition in the corporate world of clocking in only to wonder: what’s the point?” Perhaps then, the piece continues, people will end up in more meaningful jobs after their previous one is automated.